


Secrets of Eden

by HappyPrincess



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, F/F, Fantasy and Magic, Girl Direction, Girl Direction Fic Fest, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, NONE OF THE 1D PALS DIE, Original Character Death(s), Past Character Death, Violence, no sex the rating is for all those tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:36:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16481048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyPrincess/pseuds/HappyPrincess
Summary: Trying to lift the secret of her mother's death, a curse that seems to have run in their family line for centuries, Louis has been dealing with bureaucracy, empty ruins in the moors, and a desperate ghost. But when she arrives in a small town that sleeps in the mountain's shadow, and is taken in by four girls and an ageless woman, she realises that nothing could have prepared her for the truth.





	Secrets of Eden

**Author's Note:**

> This has gone truly off the rails. There are only traces of the original prompt left in this, but I hope they are enough. I promise, the major character death is no one affiliated or within One Direction, and the referenced trigger warnings just briefly mentioned. Also, chronic pain is a major part in this. If you don't like snakes, fire or ghosts you REALLY should not read this. And I scared myself while writing this several times, so if horror isn't your thing either... 
> 
> Shout out to hozier, this is basically inspired by his whole discography. 
> 
> In short: This is an un-betaed mess of dialogue and descriptions of the night time that aren't brit-picked.
> 
> Oh, well! If no one reads this, so be it. (If you do, pls tell me what you think tho)
> 
> Love. xx

 

It’s a gigantic dragon. Enormous snout resting on its claws, spiky mountain peaks forming a curved spine that bends in the skyline and seems to heave under the glimmering shine of the white sun. Its scales are formed by thousands of trees, green spots in the distance, so crowded in some places they look like strained muscles when the wind rages through the leaves. In the dip of the vale, where streets stretch towards the grey beach, its tail vanishes into the shore, foamy waves crashing against rock formations. The dragon is curled around the town, shielding it from the outside. Protecting it from the outside.  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

Louis’ shoulder aches from the way it’s pressed against the cool window. With every cobble on the dusty road, with every rumble of the bus, vibrations travel from her joint through her whole body, spine smarting and thighs twinging. They’re still sore from the flight, bones chilled through and through by the air blowing in from the back where the engine hums. She keeps shifting, trying to find a position that allows her to relax and enjoy the one-hour ride, but whenever she breathes, a muscle contracts in discomfort. Pain has been her forceful companion for half a year now. It had started out the last time she talked to her mother and the ache in her lower spine spread over the months – but never has it been quite as persistent as in the last few weeks. No surprise, really, with all the travelling and racing back and forth through countries in hope of finding the untraceable.  

All of a sudden, the landscape is distracting enough for her to freeze in the seat. The bus took a turn around a corner, and now the cliffs are in full view. In her dizzy state it’s almost as if the mountain comes alive and winks at her, a wink that is both welcoming and uncanny. The road bends around its flank, rocky hills looming on one side and houses scattered on the other, red rooftops disappearing into the drop of the scenery. From up above the tiles look like ants running away from the dragon, flashing between the forest and clustering by the coastline. Somewhere among those buildings she’ll find her last answers, the last truths. Hopefully.  

The crackling intercom of the bus driver surges alive: “We’ll arrive shortly.” A short pause. “Welcome.” 

No one reacts. The other six people in the seats seem to either sleep or listen to music, only quiet shuffling and deep sighs breaking the quiet after the cheerful welcoming. One of them has been shooting her looks for minutes now, but she’s used to that. She can practically see their confused minds trying to work out whether she’s presenting as a boy or a girl, sees their gazes stuck on her fine facial features, her barely curving chest, the rainbow pin on her coat pocket. On some days it’s amusing and on others it only adds to the weight on her shoulders, makes her ribs contract around her lungs, in tandem to the pain flaring up in her bones. Louis gives up and takes one of the painkillers she’s only supposed to take every six hours, then sinks into the rigid backrest and wills the chemicals to work quickly.  

When the bus comes to a halt in front of what she assumes to be the central station, she’s quite sure that no other soul in this town has any stress whatsoever. The ride took thirty minutes longer than anticipated, and now the people in the aisle keep leaning over the seats and shuffling their bags and bending down to pick up junk and generally standing in her way; the driver won’t open the doors for the luggage, the car next to them ignores the green light of the traffic sign, and even the seagulls fly lazily around the place. No one seems to have heard of the guesthouse she booked a room in, no one seems to have even heard of the name of the street. Google Maps leads her through half the town, back to the slope of the mountain. Its shadow lies over the read roofs like a blanket. The alley she arrives at is a sad sight. Bicycles chained together but rusting away, balconies on the high walls without floorings, blue plastic sheets covering the windows. And there is a hole in the door. Not just a small puncture or a regular catflap, but a violent tear from handle to the scratched steps of stone leading up to it. Visible through it are brown ornaments and cracks in filthy tiles.  

She sighs deeply and hoists up her suitcase, stepping inside. There’s a lift, well, more of an iron cage that she wouldn’t set foot into if her life depended on it. So she takes the stairs, wood creaking under her shoes, her back screaming in pain. The sweat of the day has collected on the edge of her collar, damp fabric scratching uncomfortably against the line of her hair. The climb to the third floor seems like eternity, and she can’t help feeling like this is a warning, a final attempt of the universe to stop and remind her of what she’s supposed to feel grateful for, what she’s supposed to appreciate about the dire situation back home. That she should give up and accept that life has its surprises.  

Light falls through dust. A glass ceiling above her is covered in tendrils and leafage, breaking the sunshine into hard streaks. Maybe this isn’t a warning after all, maybe it’s a prophecy. Pain will be ahead, but it’ll be worth it in the end. The sticky sweetness of spices and the dryness of dust clogs her nose, swells in her lungs as she gasps for air. No one opens the door in answer of her repeated ringing. She falls against the frame and closes her eyes in defeat.  

She should text her sisters again, should call her step-dad. But she has nothing to say, no more explanations. They had a hard time believing her the last time she called, anyway. Listlessly, she plays with the useless bell. Really, she has no choice but to continue. Her pain is growing, and so will the fear that has settled in her bones.  

Then, of course, the door opens in a rush and a velvet voice startles her into a small squeak. “Next time use the knocker.”   

Louis stares, first at the girl around her age dressed in a glittery jumper, then at the silvery head of a gargoyle. Both stare back in unwavering endurance. She feels her lips twitch and grins, extending a hand. “Will do. I’m Louis Tomlinson, I booked a room? Just a few days ago.” 

“Yeah,” the girl says. Her green eyes are dim in the cloudy light, but there is also something flickering in them, a warm glimmer.    
Then something strange happens. Their hands touch, palm against palm, clunky rings against her skin. And a shiver runs up her arm, almost hot in its nature, jolting her heart until it speeds up. She blushes. It’s been long since she kissed someone, but it hasn’t been _that_ long.  

The girl withdraws her hand in an instant, turning around abruptly. Was that a flash of wonder in her eyes? Louis can only see her long curls catching in the sequins of her jumper, throwing spindly shadows over the shimmering teal. The flares of her trousers drag along the floor - the surprisingly neat floor. As soon as the staircase is hidden behind her, Louis is surrounded by clean space. The sofa to her side looks well-worn but spotless, the tapestry is a pleasant, soft orange, the desk in front of a big window organised and hosting a relatively new computer. Stucco adorns the ceilings, framing a fresco of putti and allegories. The spices smell heavenly in here, less stifling and more like someone is putting a lot of love and passion into creating something new. If the rest of the guesthouse is in the same condition, she might regain some of her energy.  

Louis parks her suitcase. “Is it true that this was a normal flat, and the bedrooms are the -, the rooms? It’s a single, right? I’ll be alone?” 

Those big, green eyes rest on her, something burning in them. It is intimately unsettling. “You won’t be alone.”  

“I really need a single.” 

It’s the first time the girl smiles, left tip of her full lips lifting to create a dimple. “Don’t we all.” 

It knocks her regained breath right out again. The exhaustive journey, the prolonged flight, the snoring men next to her, the rumbling bus ride, the search for the guesthouse through this town that dissolves into streets like a labyrinth all seem worth it in this second. “Should I just pick one?” 

“Do you want to?” Suddenly, the neckline of the girl’s blouse shifts as her posture changes. It becomes apparent now, that she’s taller than Louis, broader along the shoulders.  

She stutters: “I – I mean, yeah? I’m quite tired and need to lie down, I think.” 

“Are you in pain?”  

Resentful, Louis gives an affirmative shrug. She hates it when people notice her discomfort, hates it when they start listing off treatments or tilt their head in embarrassment. But the girl does not do either of that. She darts her tongue across her bottom lip and seams to breathe in deeply, then she nods. “You can use the lift next time, I promise it's working.” 

“Not really a fan of those, I’m afraid. But thank you.” The confined space of lifts is not what worries her – it’s the bars, and the iron rods, and the rattling sounds of such old constructs.   

“Alright.” A ring-adorned finger points to a pinboard behind the desk. “The keys are over there.” A dozen keys in various sizes jingle in the soft breeze. Then the girl sends one last piercing look towards Louis and drifts down a corridor that is barely caressed by the afternoon light. Louis watches her back, hair falling on one side of her neck, shoulder blades shifting beneath the glittering jumper. She supresses the urge to giggle nervously. She blames it on the sudden appearance and disappearance of the girl when the room seems like the open windows sucked all the warmth out of it.  

After a second of expecting someone else to burst through the door on her left, or come running from the corridor, she leans over the desk – careful not to knock over the old black and white photograph of two little girls grinning madly into the camera – and picks the most extravagant key of them all. Ornaments travel along its shaft and for a moment they seem to shift, gliding along it like snakes. She almost drops it, but then a blaze of pain shoots up her spine and all she can concentrate on is her breathing. It’s eerily quiet once she straightens herself. The noise from the street below seems muffled and not a single sound seeps out from the rooms down the hallway. There is the same stucco on the edges of the ceiling, the same tone of peach on the walls, but both are hushed in the blurry shadows. Her suitcase bangs against her calf and startles her into a quiet laugh. Stress and anxiety have accumulated to a new level in her story-filled mind.    

Picking the biggest key turns out to have been a smart idea, it makes it easier to find the matching lock in one of the doors. Both are a dull silver, delicate patterns carved in the edges. The room itself is beautiful, too. Despite its basic furniture – a slim bed, a night table, a chestnut wardrobe – the atmosphere is lifted by art, endearingly tacky decorations, and a tall tree outside. Its colourful leaves filter the sun and dance in binary patterns across the floofy beddings. With a satisfied groan Louis falls onto the blanket, arms outstretched and shoes dangling from the side. She catches a whiff of those spices again and allows herself to relax, to sink back and let hope seep into her muscles like the warmth from the sheets.  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

Louis accidentally falls asleep for an hour and upon waking up finds the room drenched in the orange shine of the setting sun, the rushing of cars and occasional chatter waving up into the building again. No one sits behind the front desk, though, and no one answers her mails and calls. The scent of food has vanished but left her hungry and itching for company, so she heads out for dinner. Not far away, behind a corner store, sits a small restaurant. The waiter is slow and barely speaks to her. When he brings her the bill, she dares to ask about the church. It only earns her an indulging smile and an idle shrug. “The tourists go there. It's weird.” 

Nothing new, then. She fights the doubt creeping up on her. Tomorrow is another day. 

 

 

-*- 

 

 

She’s woken up by a bang. There’s a second of her simply laying rigidly in the cold air, eyes frantically adjusting to the grey and blue hues of dawn, then another bang, and a succession of muffled groans. Different voices mingle together, swell to an angry crescendo and then they are hushed by the familiar drawl of the girl she met yesterday. Again, everything falls silent. Louis’ heart hammers in her chest, sending rows of sweat down her body. It’s not just the jolt of being awakened so abruptly, it’s not just the fear of being in unfamiliar surroundings at night. Something cold spreads through her.  

“Almost too... No, I didn’t say -…” It’s still a stranger’s voice and barely audible through the walls, interrupted by others. They’re fighting, harsh words undiscernible in content but vicious in tone.  

Louis should close her eyes and go to sleep, ignore what’s none of her business and introduce herself to the others in the morning. Instead, she lies still beneath the duvet, forces breath into her lungs and listens intently. Behind all that arguing, there is someone sobbing. It’s a quiet crying and unabashed sniffs. Immediately she wants to go out there and soothe whomever is hurting. She shifts and presses her fingers into her own collarbone, willing the dreadful coldness away.  

Then a kettle beeps. Someone swears: “Fucking hell, can’t you keep that quiet?”  

But the sharp sound has startled Louis, and now her heartbeat is rushing in her ears, drowning out whatever is being said. She thought she had a grip on things! And now she’s frozen in a place that appeared lovely during the day and seems to grow and expand by night as she herself is shrinking and losing all control over her limbs. It’s like the first time she woke up and found her sheets soaked in her own period blood, pain thrumming in her veins and shock preventing her from calling out. Not that it’d be wise to call out now, she’s not intent on drawing the attention of those angry voices into her direction.  

For minutes she lies there, unmoving, nails digging into her own rough skin, trying to distract herself from the cold ache in her bones, trying to ignore the persistent feeling that something is deeply _wrong_. Then a person walks down the hallway. No, two people. They pass her door without hearing the loud beating of Louis’ heart, and why would they? They’re trying to keep quiet, and soon there’s only the subsiding sobbing, and a soft murmur. And then there is a hiss. It sends a shiver down Louis’ spine. With a hitched breath she realises she can’t even blink anymore, damned to stare up at the ceiling of the room. Dark shadows dance in the corners.  

“It’s worth the pain,” echoes in the dark. Louis is not sure she agrees.  

“You need to be more… -“, again only pieces of what’s being said is audible. “… please. It’s gonna be -…. Like-…” 

The crying has waned. At once, Louis can move. Shaken, she tucks the duvet around her chin, curling into a ball. Her skin feels raw and bruised, as if she had spent a winter day out in the open and has now returned home. But home is far, far away.  

With her heart finally calming down and her breath now greedy, she almost misses another set of footsteps hurrying down the hall. The rising sun breaks through the blinds, throwing a pale grid onto the wood of the door. But it’s not strong enough to compete against the flickering light of a candle that’s suddenly creeping through the gap beneath it. Yet another careful pattern of footsteps has come close. They’ve stopped right in front of her room. Louis stares at the keyhole. She imagines the handle dropping, she imagines the girl dressed in glitter stepping inside, and while the thought could’ve been enticing, exiting, arousing even – it turns her mind fearfully blank. But before her muscles can grow rigid once again, the shine of the candle travels away, taking the feeling of being watched through the door with it.  

She dreams of winding shapes and cold skin.   

 

 

-*- 

 

 

 

“There’s juice in the fridge.” It is one of the voices that had been fighting last night. It belongs to a gorgeous girl with a dark quiff and long lashes that hide her brown eyes whenever she’s looking down. Which is quite a lot. If it’s boredom or insecurity, Louis can’t tell, she's barely keeping it together to analyse her own body language. All her muscles are trying to fight the shock of last night’s confusion. Her skin is drier than usual, too, as if she had sweat out all the water in her cells.  

With a quiet nod, she takes a few steps towards the open kitchen. The common room is a small square at the end of the hallway, windows facing south and the light of the sun not yet reaching inside. A long table hosts space for a dozen chairs, plastic imitating a pale wood. To the left is a row of kitchen counters and a small refrigerator. It’s no more nor less than the guesthouses she has been staying in for the last months. And the three girls sitting at the head of the table are not the first odd people she has encountered. By far.  

The one with the black hair is leaning against the side of a girl so muscular it has taken some time for Louis’ poor, gay heart to stop racing. With nothing but a tank top, her tanned biceps are clear on display, bulging whenever she adjusts her arms over the dark haired girl’s shoulder. Actually, they all seem to appear quite athletic. The third one has a lithe build, not much taller than Louis herself but almost triangular in her torso. Her blond hair is cropped short to her head, making her blue eyes pop. They track down Louis’ movements as she carries over a glass of juice. Her smile is returned only hesitantly.  

It smells of fruit and the warm pastries that are stacked on a plate in the middle of the table, all kind of marmalades and sweets offered in small dishes but no one eats. No one moves to pour the steaming tea into the waiting cups or peel the oranges or use the shining cutlery. No one acknowledges Louis taking a seat. They’re all just sitting there, staring at the table top, breathing quietly.  

“Good morning,” she says. 

It activates something in the blonde. She grins. “G’monring. Didn’t know you were here already. I’m Niall Horan, by the way, I was the one behind the mails. I understand that you’ve checked yourself in?” 

She puts down the glass she was about to raise to her chapped lips. “Oh, ah, actually your colleague checked me in? Well, she showed me the keys, I thought…” Embarrassment overcomes her. Of course, that wasn’t a colleague. Of course, she should’ve been more adamant in waiting for someone that actually had the authority to give her a room and wouldn’t leave her choosing the most dramatic of keys on her own.  

But the girl quickly waves a hand. “Nah, no! Don’t worry! Harry might not be me, but she knows her way around by now. We’ll just need to go over a few things after breakfast, yeah? Papers, you know the stuff. I’m Niall.” 

Louis doesn’t say that Niall has already mentioned her name, and introduces herself, turning to the other two expectantly. They are very peculiar, these two. There is not one moment they aren’t touching, but the way they move seems contrasted, feels angular. Zayn, the one with the dark hair, appears to have a very relaxed body language but when she rubs her eye or leans back, it becomes clear that every movement, every blink is deliberate. Liam, the muscly one, is the complete opposite. Her gestures are wide and impulsive, her expressions like little beams on her face. She grins as she introduces the two of them. They had been listening attentively and are still watching when Louis finally reaches across the table to get herself one of those baked goods, making small talk with Niall.  

“What room did you choose?” Liam asks suddenly, interrupting Louis’ recollection of the restaurant she had dinner at yesterday.  

She stops dabbing at the pink blotches of raspberry marmalade on her plate. “Uh, the one with the silver key?” 

Neither Liam nor Zayn react, but across Niall’s lips dances a small smile. “My aunt used to sleep in there.”  

Then, the air changes. It's as if the sun has found a way to reach inside, room now lit in a warm glow. The scents of the oranges intensify, almost sweetly sour on her tongue. Without turning around, she knows there’s someone standing behind her. 

“I told you.” 

The girl. Harry, apparently. She still has the grace and beauty of an angel even clad in simple cotton pants and a plain shirt. Her curls are drawn up into a half bun, a couple of them tumbling along her temples. The green in her eyes stills Louis’ breath. That and... the wounds. Two thin, red lines trail down from her tearducts as if someone had cut her there with a hot knife. Burns. She tries not to stare as the girls walks towards the table, tries not to ask what happened, tries to ignore the creeping realisation that whatever happened must have happened last night. “Uh, what?” 

“Not you. Them.” A nod towards the other three as she sits down next to her. “They wouldn’t believe me last night, but this is all so obvious.” 

At loss, Louis looks back and forth between the four.  Unsurprisingly, no one explains that ominous statement to her. This is Moreilles all over again. There, too, people had remained mysterious and stoic in the beginning. And it had held more answers to her then all the other cities combined. Excitement surges through her. Finally, her stubbornness makes itself known again, prepared to do what’s necessary to solve this riddle. “So you expected me to choose that key?” 

So close to her, she sees the slight tremor around Harry’s velvet lips. And the unevenness of the burns. “It is the prettiest. And the room is beautiful, isn’t it?” 

“It’s also conveniently thin-walled.” 

If she hadn’t looked away, overwhelmed by Harry’s twinkling eyes and her disrupted skin, she wouldn’t have seen the worry that storms across Liam’s face. “You heard us?” 

“No, not really. Just heard you were up. I guess it wasn’t just a late night walk?” Louis keeps her tone light and friendly, she doesn’t want to come off as rude after all.  

Niall grins widely, but it doesn’t hide the sudden paling around her nose. “Nope. Just had a regular meet-up, spending some time together. You know. Laying in each other's arms.” 

It evokes the first real laughter among the four girls, all of them either giggling or chuckling to themselves. Zayn’s face transforms from stony to light-hearted giddiness in mere seconds, like a tulip bursting open in the spring. It’s as brash as Harry snorting into her cup of tea, but not nearly as beautiful as the delightful fluttering of Harry’s lashes. It makes Louis forgive them for feeling like she’s missing the joke.  

Finally, they start eating, too, and over the course of the morning Louis slowly learns how each of them came to this place, so remote from the centre of the town. Niall grew up in this house. Her aunt left it to her after her death, and she turned parts of it into rentable rooms. Upon Louis’ condolences, Niall simply nods and talks of Zayn’s and Liam’s arrival two years ago. They had been travelling throughout Europe, restless and unsatisfied, until they stumbled across Niall in the mountains, all three of them on a hike that would end in an offer to stay.  

“And you?” She asks, subtly pressing against Harry’s calf beneath the table.  

“Oh, I’m just… taking a break.” It’s said so quietly, almost sadly. She’s bent over the table, shoulders pulled up to the sharp edge of her jaw. Louis keeps herself from reaching out and comforting her.    
   
Niall clicks her tongue. “We’ll find a way for you to stay.”   

Harry bites her lower lip, shakes her head. “You know you won’t.” 

They are having a quiet staring contest, one determined, one resigned. Liam shoots Louis an apologetic smile. “How long will you stay?” 

“Ah,” she hesitates, wishes Harry’s attention would be on her again. “Not long, probably. I need to finish the research for-. For my paper.”    
It has been working quite well, this excuse. People tend to feel relieved when Louis’ inquiries and sneaking about serve a purpose of academia.  

Liam’s brows raise in interest: “Oh! What’re you researching? Is it about the city?” 

Is it? Louis doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what this is about, she only knows that it exists and that it trembles like an electric wire in her chest, urging her to go on. Urging her to find out what has happened to her mother, what will happen to herself. “I think the city will help me, yeah. There’s a church I want to visit, just to check whether one of my suspicions is true. And maybe I can have a look at some old books, people’s diaries... All that stuff.” 

Niall perks up suddenly. “Church? Which one?” 

Louis tells her. There’s a collective tensioning at the table. Harry’s face whips around so fast, a curl lashes against Louis’ arm. “What kind of paper is _that_?” 

“Oh, c’mon, a church like that really isn’t the oddest thing.” They are probably concerned about the tomb. Admittedly, what she heard about that tomb is kind of discomforting. 

“It’s not that,” Liam says. “It’s just... weird that you’re here for the church we often... attend.” 

Oh, that _is_ weird. Then again, this town isn’t that big and there probably are very few churches scattered among it. She doesn’t remember seeing many in the landscape from the journey down the mountain slope.  

“Weird, huh,” Niall mocks, and there’s another silent exchange between her and Harry. What the fuck is going on? “Don’t you wanna go explore the city with Louis?” 

“I don’t think-“ 

“No,” Harry spits out. Affronted, Louis turns to look at her, but her wit wanes at the sight of her shimmering eyes. Tears swim in the corners of them.  

“You won’t-… it won’t happen during the day, in the middle of the streets. You’re letting your fears determine your actions!”  

“I can feel it-..." Over the rim of her glass, Louis’ gaze is stuck on the angry marks that discern her sun-touched face. “There’s no use in trying, it’d be a waste of time, I know it’ll happen, and I know it’ll happen soon.” 

Nothing in this fucking guesthouse makes any sense. Louis watches as the four girls exchange looks, listens as Harry mumbles something about inevitability, raises her glass of juice to her mouth and tries to get the last drop out of it, pretends to be interested in the artwork on the walls. She manages to drown out the harsh back and forth with the worries about her step-dad and sister, wonders if they are alright, wonders if she’ll get to see them again this month. If this church really is as important as it seems to be, then maybe. Then, Zayn speaks up.  

“You said, she’d help.” 

Harry, arms now crossed, juts out her chin. “I said she’d change things. Dunno in what way.” 

With a chill down her spine, Louis realises they’re talking about her. None of them are shooting her as much as a glance, but they’ve all been too open about something that feels too private. They’re either goading her into asking directly or trying to figure out whether Louis knows more than she says she does. So she does what she is used to: She asks. “You guys are so fucking confusing. Can you all just tell me why you’re being so cryptic?” 

The warmth of the leg, that had been touching Louis’ for minutes now, subsides, and Harry shifts. As does Liam, jostling Zayn in her haste. Niall sighs. “When you sent me that mail about booking a room, Harry told us you would change something in… our lives. She got a feeling.” 

She doesn’t ask how Harry knew. Where can psychics not be found, in this day and age? Before she packed her things, her roommate would accurately tell her the delays of the tubes in the morning. No, it’s not psychics that she needs to find. But if these girls know of the powers that drift through the air, seep through the earth, then maybe they know of other things, too. “You don’t know whether I’ll make your lives worse or better, is that it? What if I promise to help you, will stay out of the things you tell me to stay out of… I won’t be in your way. And you, you could help me. Tell me why that church is so special to you.”  

Louis ends up looking at Harry. Whose smile tilts down in the corners of her velvet mouth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“You’ve been in the city longer than I have, you could show me around.” At this point she’s simply grasping for her own reasoning. Maybe it’s because she has always been weak when it came to spending time with passionate people, with soft girls, maybe it’s because she has finally tired of being alone for half a year. She swallows the scratchy memories of motherly hugs and encouraging words. “I’d like that.” 

In the corners of her eyes, she sees Niall leaning against the backrest of her chair, a smug expression on her face. “See. Some people accept help.” 

Harry ignores her, looks Louis up and down with furrowed brows. “We’ll go back before the sun sets.” 

Is that it? She is afraid of the dark? Or is it something else, something actually dangerous? “We will.” 

A shaky intake of breath. “Okay.” Quietly. A mumble. But enough.  

“Okay,” Louis whispers. 

 

 

-*- 

 

 

They leave an hour after that. The cold has started to pool above the pavement, sinks into her shoes once they set foot in the abandoned alley. The metal of the scrapped bicycles looks dull in the grey clouds that have started to billow across the sky, billow like the heavy skirt Harry changed into. It ends just above her sock-clad ankles, upper part of it hidden by a woollen coat that frays along the buttons, that sits skewed at the collar.  

“So you know where to go?”, Louis asks when they step onto the main street, easily carried over the lazy wind tugging at her hair. 

Harry, steering her to the left and away from the mountain, grins. “I’ve been in that church many times, trust me.” 

“Why? Why that one?” 

Another sideward glance from Harry as they steer towards the high street. Louis is trying not to stare at her obsessively, but her green eyes and plump lips keep distracting her. “A... friend owns it. It’s less praying we do there and more talking of the past.” 

“Do loads of people go there?” 

“Mainly us and the tourist, to be honest. The tomb makes people uncomfortable.” 

Exactly what the waiter said, then. And Louis’ suspicions seem to be true. While they are walking through the shabby neighbourhood, she keeps thinking about the odd circumstances that led her directly to the person that will lead her to her answers. Of all the guesthouses she could have picked… Her hard work, all the times when she thought she could go no further and a dead end presented itself, have accumulated in this dizzying chain of events. Now, she is wandering through a desolate city with someone who is not only a seer, but immensely beautiful and mysterious and subtly flirting with her.   

“So,” she starts. Their elbows brush. “When did you figure out you possess the sight?” 

Harry makes a flailing motion and splutters her way through an adorable attempt at wit: “Oh, I dunno, when, uh, did you figure out that, that you’re _gay_?” 

Louis covers her heart-racing with a snort and a wiggle that gets them closer together. “Alright, alright. Sorry, I didn’t know... Uh. When I was fourteen, I think. We moved, ah, me and my family. And I, like, really missed my best friend. _Really_ missed her. Once, I walked one hour to the bus station to get to her, back to the town we lived in, and then another two hours from the station to her home.” 

There’s a short pause where the two of them stare at the pavement, first fallen leaves tumbling into their view. Then they start laughing.  

“Oh, God,” Harry wheezes and stumbles over her dangly legs, knocking their arms together. It shoots a tinge up Louis’ veins. “It’s kinda not funny at all and I'm so, so sorry for you, but -… fuck.” 

Between small bursts of giggles, glowing cheeks and glinting eyes, Louis tells the story of that first crush. How she used to write her letters almost every day, how she begged her step-dad to driver her back every weekend, how that girl never realised what was going on, not even when they kissed that one time. And then Harry starts reminiscing, too, and suddenly they are bonding over oblivious straight teenagers that used to pad their sticky fingers along their waists and press them close to their chests but got awkward and rigid at a simple three letter word. Neither of them sounds particularly bitter or sad but they’re both using sarcasm that’s just a hint too cheerful, a little too amused. It has been ages since Louis had had the time and place to talk so freely, and it feels as invigorating as knowing she is only mere minutes away from holding the truth in her hands.  

The pounding of her heart echoes through her body and accumulates in a pain in the bottom of her spine. She is used to that fierce ache, knows it’ll spread the longer they’ll walk, and it still makes her want to scream and cry and curl up into a ball. “How long ‘s it?” It takes so much for her to be vulnerable in front of this stranger, this girl that obviously knows a lot about worry and pain herself, but if their destination isn’t nearby soon, she will have to sit down.  

“Ten minutes, maximum. And you can rest there, Eve won’t mind.” Harry digs her hands into her coat pockets, posture weakening further. Louis’ own back whines at the sight.  

She takes a breath through her clenched teeth and nods. And so they keep walking. At some point, when her shirt begins to cling to her stomach and she thinks of her teenager self that would have felt uncomfortable going out in public feeling so dirty and damp, she realises that there is barely any commotion outside. No one sits on benches, no one walks their dogs, no one looms behind windows and watches. In the lonely streets there is only an occasionally littered and tattered item, the sighing wind, and the shadow of the mountain. However, it is a weekday, and a cold one at that. Everyone is probably cuddled into blankets or hunched over workplaces.  

“It’s so much smaller than I thought,” she says, when they have rounded an inconspicuous grey building and suddenly a church comes into their view. _The_ church.  

Harry hums quietly. It barely reaches Louis’ ears over a sudden gust of air. The church is not on some high hilltop or in a secluded area, but in the crossing of several paths all leading away from it in straight lines. Between them are planes of foot worn grass, patches of wilting weeds and yellowing flowers, drooping petals dangling sadly in the breeze. In the height of spring this place must look beautifully colourful, but autumn makes it look forgotten and listless, like a lost ship among a dark sea.  

Louis and Harry walk around the steeple of the church to find their way to the entrance. It’s so slim. So much scrubbier than the pictures suggested, so much more worn and wearied by the wind. The door is nothing but scarred wood and faded inscriptions at the fringes. They stop in front of it and she almost expects it to open on its own accord.  

“You know what,” Harry contemplates, before Louis can finally muster up the courage to raise her hand and push to enter. “This place thrums with all kind of forces.” 

Louis’ fingers freeze against the door. “What?” 

“With that tomb? Of course it does.” 

A small bead of sweat trickles along her neck. She regrets putting on her coat, regrets not coming here alone. Another voice of worry is really not what she needs right now. Another encounter with a ghost is really, really not what she needs right now or ever again. Her throat closes in muscle memory of that scary evening. With a dry tongue she rasps: “Are you sure? Can you feel them? Is it ghosts?” 

Harry’s mouth twitches infinitesimally. “No. No, there are no ghosts here. I can't feel their presence, but they're dramatic ones, those ghosts."

"Feel their presence?"

"With... uhm, with people who are alive I can sometimes feel their presence. Or, well, uh, their fates, I guess. Their unconscious waves, like. If it changes the course of my fate. ” 

Fuck, Louis’ mind begins to whirr. This is a little too much at once. “You gotta explain that to me some time later. But there’s no creepy things in there, right? No ghosts?” 

Next to the door hangs a sign: TOMB ONLY ACCESSIBLE UPON ENTRY FEE. The number has been repainted several times by the looks of it. She wonders whether they lowered or hiked up the price over the years. When they realised they could profit from the discovery that made them famous, at least among invested academics and determined tourists. Harry leans against the sign and cocks her hip out. The shadow of the church falls over her pretty face and paints over all the rosy colour of her skin. And the burns. “Naaah,” she mumbles, sends Louis a swirly smile. "Maybe other nocturnal creatures, but no ghosts.” 

Louis’ shirt must be drenched at the armpits. “What do you mean?” 

A bold laugh startles her out of her anxiety. Such a honking, teethy laugh. “I mean the shifters.” 

Now, Louis laughs, too. It rattles uncomfortably in her rib cage and sends a painful shrill through her bones. Every part of her body feels frozen over. “You’re talking about werewolves?” Louis adjusts her fringe and winces at the dampness collected on her forehead.  

“No. Other... other people,” Harry says, once again slow and careful. But now with an earnest sheen in her eyes. Her words touch something deep down in Louis’ chest, somewhere below her heart. It’s enough for the ache in her spine to ebb. At the same time, her vision turns blurry with tears. To hide them, she finally pushes against the door and enters the church, leaving Harry and her cheeky dimples behind.  

Inside, it is even chillier. The bare walls reflect the cold inside the room, trap it, make it almost palpable in its dryness. It collides with the sweat beneath Louis’ clothes and dries it uncomfortably against her skin. But there is also a small reverberating in the core of her bones, in the tightening of her muscles. She has never seen the insides of this room before and yet it feels strangely familiar, as if she could find traces of herself lying in the cracks of the stones or caught in the cobwebs along the ceiling. Her shaky intake of breath is acknowledged by a big hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to do this, y’know?” 

“I really do.” 

“What research is worth your fear?” 

She chuckles quietly. “Research that has shit to do with academia and everything to do with myself.”  

Another hum. A soft sound in a scornful space. Ahead is the nave of the church. The columns supporting the ceiling seem to shrink under the weight, crumbling in their sockets. Half a dozen wooden benches, low and decidedly not made for comfort, face the altar. The windows barely allow any light to seek its way inside and neither are lamps to be found, the only source of a dim shine are five candles lit on a small table on the far left. Their glow illuminates the slim cross on the wall and contorts the face of the figurine. Christ’s usually so painful expression seems almost wistful. But that is not what Louis is surveying, not what she came here for.  

The staircase is made of shallow steps that disappear into darkness. It winds down behind two columns, only visible if one looks for it. “That’s leading to the tomb?” 

“Yeah,” Harry says, but she isn’t paying attention, is instead looking to the candles.  

“Do I really need to pay three euros to go down there? Who’s there to stop me?” 

Harry answers and at the same time, footsteps begin to echo from the walls. “She’s usually down there or bend over some book.” 

 _She_ is a woman dressed in black. In contrast to Louis’ idea of the place and its atmosphere, she is neither old nor gloomy. Maybe middle-aged, with lines along her eyes and a healthy glow to her cheeks, a light walk, and a wide smile that she sends towards them. “Harry! I didn’t expect you today, and accompanied by a friend, too! How are the others?” 

Louis sees Harry’s hands disappearing in the depths of her coat. “Hello, Eve. Louis is staying at Niall’s. She’s a tourist.” 

Some kind of understanding blooms in Eve’s expression, and without a warning her body language changes. Erect and with a hard root to her words, she asks: “And you’re here to see the tomb?” 

Well, then. “Yes, but not just that,” she says and ignores Harry’s confused stare. “I’d like to look at some of the records.” 

“Records.” 

“Yeah. The kind that keeps track of the people that have funded the church.” 

Eve emerges from between the two columns, now two steps away. “This was built hundreds of years ago, there are no records from that time.” 

“But it was reconstructed in the fourties.” 

“By an anonymous donor.” 

“Not so anonymous if she’s in that tomb, hm?”     
Harry’s breath audibly hitches, and Eve, too, seems to compose herself. This is it. This is the final piece, the piece that will either confirm or deny everything that Louis feels deep down in her core. With shaking fingers, she reaches out and touches Eve’s elbow. “I just need to check. I just need to make sure she’s who I think she is, I won’t take anything with me and I won’t, like, do any harm. I swear.” 

“If you know who it is, why do you need to see the records at all?” Eve asks, but she’s already giving an affirmative shrug and turning around. “Come with me.” 

They don’t descend the stairs, they walk through the aisle and towards the altar, before taking a turn to the left and surpass the table with the candles. Harry shuffles quietly behind them. There’s another door here, and it reveals a room filled with bookshelves. An escritoire in the middle, an age-old computer, corkboards full of postcards and post-its. A funky ikea armchair is a vibrant speck of green.   

“Sit,” Eve says, and Louis notices Harry’s absence. The door is closed behind her, and the books enclose the silence. One of those books replaces a stack of papers on the table. Eve doesn’t annotate what she is doing, blocks Louis from reading the words, and after stepping away again simply leaves open a page for her to inspect.  

Louis shuffles in the armchair. Bends forward. Reads the agreement and the thank you note that are attached to the paper, reads the date of the signature, reads the address of the donor. The address that is the same she is staying in right now. She reads the name again and again. Then she whispers: “Can I see her?”   
   
And Eve nods, leads them into the nave again, past Harry who is staring forlornly at the candles, down the aisle, down the stairs – sound of their breathing and their shoes against the stone encompassing them – into an open space beneath the church. It’s a wide, square vastness that is much, much larger than the building up above. Visible in the flooring is the change in marble where the excavations had started. First a dark surface, then an almost dainty pattern. Thin snakes curl around flowers, lush apples hang from trees, plants edged into stone. It beholds a strange beauty that wraps around Louis’ lungs and almost makes her cry in wonder. Almost. The floor is not what is striking about the place, neither is the serpent monument in the middle. It stinks of dry, wasted deaths. Because ingrained in the walls, as alcoves that are no more than half a meter, are open graves. Skeletons lie peacefully in their own forsakenness, all with sheets covering their faces, all with resting hands atop their chests. All draped in moth-eaten dresses.  

Louis’ hands are shaking. She can’t talk. Her mouth doesn’t belong to her anymore.  

“She is buried over there,” Eve says, and points towards the far right. The oldest part of the tomb.  

Harry is back again, back at Louis’ side. Her face is pale, white in the room that is only lit by holes in the ceiling, her wounds fading into the darkness. Bars split the weak sunshine into slim lines that fall over the cushions of Harry’s lips, fall over the statue of the snake, fall over the dusty stones. “You don’t have to look at that,” Harry whispers. But Louis does. So she sends all her energy into her legs, past the pain, past the fear, and walks through the room. The skeletons don’t move, of course they don’t, they don’t care about the Living. When she stops, the skeleton that lies in the grave before her does not care either. It’s motionless and decaying and its dress concaves above its rib cage. It’s exactly like a skeleton this old should be: It’s dead and it’s nothing but an object. An object with a name tag dangling from its pinkie.  

Harry audibly swallows. “Is that the one you wanted to find?” 

Her tongue feels dry. “Yeah.” 

“Oh.” Faintly. “Why?” 

“That’s my great-grandmother.”                              

 

 

-*- 

 

 

“We moved because my mother got ill, and my step-dad wanted to be close to a hospital in case something happened. It didn’t really... help much. I think it made it worse. The less time she spent outside the more she...,” Louis breathes through the malaise that is spreading in her stomach. It makes it hard to form the words, but she also knows talking about it is the only way to get rid of the sadness. “She never really told us much about her family. Me ‘n my siblings, I mean. I dunno how much my dad – and my step-dad... how much they know. I knew her father had died when she was little, and I know that she wasn’t raised by her mother only, but she wouldn’t ever talk much about her childhood. Anyway, that isn’t... one day she told me all of us - ‘xept my brother – would... feel her pain, too. That _something_ would happen to me and my sisters, something bad. But she never told me what exactly, and I'm still so angry-” Her shoulders can’t relax, keep rising whenever she gets a glimpse of Harry’s calm expression. “Basically, she told me we’re cursed.” 

It’s what she kept repeating, it’s what her mother clung unto until she went nonverbal, started locking herself into her room not just during the night but during the day, too; and wouldn’t let them in. Whether it was for her own wellbeing or to reassure her children in some kind of twisted way, she was convinced it wasn’t an earthly sickness that plagued her, but a magical spell that had trapped her family line for centuries. “She told me there’s no way to prevent the curse. She said my grandmother tried it with religion and... and my mother told me she went to see a witch a couple of times, but that the witch only told her she’d have to embrace it like... welcome it, I guess.” Louis always tries not to think about that too much. “That was... the worst. Like, seeing her so hopeful at first and then utterly disappointed in the end, I -…” 

Harry, who has been silently playing with the rings on her fingers and pressing her knee into Louis’ thigh, draws up her other leg onto the couch and hums. “It must’ve been hard to watch and not be able to do anything.” 

In the little café they slipped into, the wall is a pattern of tropical birds sitting in lush trees. Louis’ gaze travels along the vibrant feathers and outstretched wings, trapped by the tapestry, ready to take off but never able to fly. “Yeah,” she says. Two empty plates sit in front of her, crumbs of their lunch strewn on the shiny table top and a steaming cup of coffee next to them, untouched, the foam dissolving into the liquid. The heat might be good, warm the icy blankness within her, but her hands lie motionless in her own lap, fingers still trembling. The image of her great-grandmother cornered by stone won’t leave her mind. “So, I promised myself I'd try to find a cure. Or, at least, try to find out what it was that kept happening to all women in our family.” 

“That’s what you’ve been researching?” 

She nods. “My nan -... my grandmother was adopted. But that wasn’t even that much of an issue. Did you know though, that a mother’s maiden name isn’t on birth certificates before, ah, nineteen-eleven, I think? Yeah. _That_ was a pain in the ass.” Harry doesn’t join her dry laughter. “So. My nan never knew her mum. But. Her father married. Because, like, apparently, he and her mother never did, and that’s the reason she was adopted, yeah? But. Like, I found his name in an old telephone book – _that_ was a fucking pain in the ass to find – and through that I found his old address, and I got lucky because the owner now could -… basically, I went to visit his grandson. In Belgium.” All of this is written in her journal, every false lead documented, every nice lady on a phone who was willing to help her out written down by name. “And he told me, that he – his great-grandfather who was also my great-grandfather – used to live in a tiny town in the west of France.” 

“So you went to France,” Harry says, and travels a finger along the seam of Louis’ trousers. It sends a warm spark up her body.  

“So I went to France, yeah. And there they started talking about how he ran away from his home town, this town. And... and they talked about mythical creatures.” 

This time, Harry’s cackling laughter joins hers. A guy in a business suit sitting by the window looks at them strangely, but Louis ignores him and winks at Harry mischievously. “Imagine my reaction. Like, my roommate in college was a seer, and I’ve heard of the vampire communities in the north, but like... it’s not like you meet nymphs or ghosts every other week, you get what I mean?” 

Harry simply settles further into the couch they are sharing and sends her a sly smile. If all these hints and implications are true, she has probably seen more than woodland creatures and ghosts. Louis massages her temples to get rid of the strain in her eyes. “I only started believing them when I went into the moors and to the nearby ruins - just for some sightseeing - and a ghost shocked the living hell out’ve me.”  

“You survived a ghost?? Without protection? In the _moors_?” 

“It was broad daylight! I would have never went at night, but how would I know that some guy who died thirty years ago had unfinished business and thought my body would be the way to solve it.” It comes out almost lightly, teasingly as if the memory of the man literally merging with her skin and bones and muscles doesn’t keep her up at night.  

“He wasn’t able to...” Harry’s face loses all colour.  

“No,” Louis pronounces slowly. “He only got, uh, hold of my arms before he started to dissipate again? He kept saying I didn’t have the right energy or something.” There had also been something about protecting someone or something, about having to set things right. “Is it true that ghosts can only, like, pass if they’ve fulfilled something? Also, how do you know all this stuff?” 

The cushion on the couch squishes below Harry’s calves where the dress has ridden up. Harry adjusts the fabric, clearly thinking about her answer. “My... my father is a seer, too. Only that we never called it that, I -… he told me some stuff about it, I’ve got some books from him. Proper old, dusty page-turners. There’s very little about my own kind of… they’re not very diverse, those books. Uhm. But yeah, yeah. Ghosts occur when someone dies but has a major, major thing that needs to be set right by them. It’s actually quite a rare occurrence. But they can’t possess a body for a long time, that’s more of a demon kinda thing. With ghosts, they tend to slip into someone’s body for short times to get access to their, like, mind. To memories ‘n stuff.”  

“Demons,” Louis gasps. Her heart falls into the pit of her stomach.  

“Mhm,” Harry hums. Her curls slide over her shoulder and cover the side of her face. “But the chance of meeting them is... you’ll never meet one, I promise you. You should worry more about walking into ruins and forests without protection with your...” 

“With my what?” 

A touch to her wrist. “With the energy you’re radiating.”   
“My aura?” Maybe that’s the reason why her roommate’s predictions about the traffic were always more accurate when it came to Louis.  

“Yeah.” 

“Well, then, you’ll have to give me protection. Because I sure will be seeing some more ruins and forests.” 

“God,” Harry says, and her green eyes are lit by a mixture of horror and admiration. “Do you have, like, no fear at all?” 

“I grew up surrounded by forest it always meant home and peace to me, never a fucking spirit that tries to use my memories! I walked our dog every night!” She feels the urge to get defensive, wants to explain that her mother used to lock herself into her own room at night and never allowed them to talk to her once the sun set. The woods became more familiar than her parent’s bedroom. “My mother never, like, taught me to be afraid of... of the outside. It was always herself she was most afraid of. It fucked me up.” 

Instantly, Harry’s lashes sink, and her lower lip falls slightly, understanding reshaping her face. “I know that feeling.” 

They look at each other for a moment. Every second that passes makes Louis’ heart beat faster, a heat blooming on her cheeks. So this is what it is like to not feel cold all the time. She exhales. “We shouldn’t have to.” 

“No,” Harry murmurs, head turning away. Her legs are still resting on the couch, body curled like the strands of hair slinking into the neckline of her jumper. “Can’t change it, tho.” 

Another heated emotion appears in Louis’ chest. Anger. “I don’t want to be afraid of... of that curse. I might not know what it is exactly, but I want to find a way to prevent it and I will. Now that I know my great-grandmother wasn’t just buried here, but used to _live_ here... There must be more. I’ll go back to Eve, I _know_ she hasn‘t told me everything. And you -,” she grips Harry’s arm. “I dunno what it is, why you think you can’t stay at Niall’s - and what those wounds mean, but you can’t possibly want to stay afraid forever.” 

Harry pulls away. “You don’t know what it’s like.” 

Louis opens her mouth to – to protest, or to agree, or say anything, really, but then her gaze falls onto the burns beneath Harry’s eyes. In the tomb, she had explained their semi-visibility with the darkness. But now, in the shine of the café, she can see that they have faded. Faded in mere _hours_. Her breath turns into something tangible in her lungs. Gently, she brings up her hand. Rests it on Harry’s cheek. “They’re healing,” she whispers. 

Fingers glide along her knuckles. Harry lays her hand atop hers. “They’ll be gone by the end of the day.” 

“How?” Louis’ voice has become timid. The warmth from being looked at by those sad, green eyes clashes with the cold of the pain in her muscles, the rigidity slowing the race of her heart. 

“You know I'm-… that people’s... fates touch me, communicate with me. Their, like, paths in life can... bump into my consciousness.”  

“Is that how it works?” 

Harry takes Louis’ hand and starts playing with her fingers, won’t look at her but gives Louis the opportunity to watch every twitch, every slip in her expression. “Sometimes. If their lives are particularly intertwined with my own. But most often I only get a feeling of like... that I need to open up to it, it can’t come to me on its own. So I... - It works through fire.” 

Nausea takes over Louis’ senses. She is incredibly glad of not having sipped on her coffee, her stomach is churching without the added bitterness. “You have to... burn yourself?” 

“In a way,” Harry says. “But not in the way you think, it’s not... I mean, sometimes it’s already enough to stare into an open flame for a while, but it’s what I said: It’s within me. It’s not outside forces that make me a... a seer, I guess. It’s my own body.” 

“What... what do you mean?”  

“You wouldn’t believe me, I promise.”  

Louis stills her fidgeting and encloses her hand with her own. Her rings radiate heat. “I told you I'm cursed, and that a ghost wanted to take me. I’ll believe you.” 

When her mother told her about the curse, her first reaction was pity. She pitied her mother for believing such a foolish thing, for clutching to an explanation that would offer her an escape from the harsh reality of life: That people randomly suffer. That there is no divine intention that wants to harm her specifically. And then she grew to understand that her pity didn’t help to ease her mother’s pain, nor did it allow her to grieve her death. And now, since finding out that her great-grandmother was a donor to a church that was apparently built on a premediaeval building that hosts the dead bodies of some type of Satanist Group or other worshippers of the serpent, she knows that the only help is understanding. Answers. Compassion.  

Harry tells her. Combined with the cold, Louis’ nausea spreads through her torso.  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

 

Everything in Louis screams at her to go back to the church, to go back to her great-grandmother's grave and to that that snake monument, and to nag Eve until she has told her all she is hiding. Something about the abrupt changes of her demeanour tells Louis that whatever reason her ancestor had for sending away her child, for funding the church’s renovation after the discovery of the tomb and for wanting to be buried admits it, Eve knows about them. Or can at least find some of them in all those books sitting in that office.  

However, Harry seems exhausted and sunken in in herself. As they make their way back to the guesthouse, Louis has to narrow her steps and check every now and then whether they’re still walking alongside each other. The wind creeps into her clothes, undoubtedly freezing Harry’s skin, too. When they stop at a red light and don’t start moving when it turns green, Louis puts her hand on Harry’s back and says: “C’m’here, let’s go.” Harry stares at her, through her, until she gives a small nod and steps closer. Louis keeps her arm around her waist until they’re past the corner shop and arrive at the entrance to the building.   

Her coat catches in the splinters of the hole in the door, but Harry doesn’t notice and ascends the stairs, not once looking back. Louis follows her, already preparing herself to bear the climb. The iron lift rattles while she pants, spine and shoulder blades digging into underside of her skin on her back, limbs so heavy they might as well be petrified. Tears pool in her eyes but the tears remind her of Harry’s own pain, so she keeps quiet, clenches her jaw and sinks onto the sofa inside the guesthouse. Niall sits by the front desk, hunched over the computer and glasses perches on her nose, sending them a worried glance as Harry’s figure retreats into the darkness of the hallway.  

“Liam and Zayn made soup, if ya want any?”, Niall asks, but Louis only closes her eyes and lets the solid room around her dissipate in her mind.  

She doesn’t know how to deal with all of this. She doesn’t know how to pursue the little breadcrumbs until she has the full picture, doesn't even know what the full picture is. She doesn’t know how to take care of her own body nor her mind, doesn’t know how to ease Harry’s worries, doesn’t know how to go back to her sisters and tell them they’re cursed and will die at an early age after having gone through a life of pain. It’s not like there aren’t people whose lives are equally marked by hardship and difficulties, it’s not like she never encountered others that suffer. But a curse?  

With a tight throat she breathes in the aroma of pumpkin and roasted onions, gut clenching at the smell. The images of flames scorching Harry’s face, skeletons rotting in their stony graves and snakes curling around lavish fruits clog her imagination, denie her access to her memories. She can’t remember whether her mother ever used to make pumpkin soup. It’s such an insignificant thing and yet it makes her heave a dry sob.  

Eventually, Niall picks her up from the sofa and forces her to sit down in the common room. They talk of trivial things while she sips on a mug of tea and dips a spoon into the soup. “Let me tell you how this place came to be,” Niall starts, and tells her about a group of women in the nineteenth century, who felt vulnerable and exposed in the tightknit and mean spirit of the town, vowing to protect each other and their kin. They had the building constructed, richest of them paying the cost, far away from scornful eyes. It took a century until the population grew enough to reach them, but by then their crime – to exist and to live happily – was forgiven and forgot. Mostly. Their punishment now is abandonment, says Niall, the building is rotting, and no one will help. They had to give up the lower floors already, the cellar is too depraved to set foot in. _My great-grandmother lived here,_ she wants to scream, but her voice is parched. Would Niall know her name?  

Louis listens until her tea is empty and then she excuses herself, fleeing to her room. Here she hunts for her pain killers and sinks into the bed, staring at the ceiling and floating in the heavenly numbness. For a while her mind is wonderfully blank. Then she slips into a treacherous doze that turns memories into dancing shadows, creeping shapes and lurking atrocities. The day wanes, and the sun no longer reaches inside, giving way to cloudy greyness. Sounds from the street cease, birds stop flying by until even the wind fails to push through the holes in the windows and cast its sighs.                   

Night comes and she hasn’t left her room. Her body is sticky and disgusting, her emotions exhausted. What she needs is a shower, a hot shower that’ll wash away her worries and the scary images in her head. She collects her towel and her pyjamas, slips into flip flops. Then she tip-toes through the heavy silence. There is no window in the hallway, and still no noises, no light pushing through the gaps in the doors. Seeping out from a room she assumes to be Harry’s is only the deep smell of vanilla and other spices. She feels the urge to stop and breathe in deeply, maybe even knock and ask if she is alright, if she wants company for another hour. But her mother’s actions marked her, she grew up with a rule to stay away at night, to let sleeping people be, to never disturb them in their own sanctuary.  

The bathroom is a narrow room. This morning she had almost hit her head on one of the towel racks and bumped her knee against the fractured sink. Two stalls hide toilets on the right sides, wood swollen by humidity. Louis doesn’t use them, instead turns to the back of the room where several showerheads are attached to the wall.  
She freezes to the spot, the coldness of the floor reaching her feet even through the flip flops. She hadn't yet turned on the light, contended herself with the blue shine of the moon falling through the window. Its glow gives the white of the tiles a pale, lilac colour, shadows flickering over something in the corner. What she first assumed to be leftover water, dark and rippling as it sickles down the drain, becomes its own mind. It is as if a crack had broadened, widened into a band as thick as the trunk of a tree, and then split in half. The two shapes part, black lines against slick white, and Louis cannot move, cannot scream. Can only feel her silent fear manifest in her body, feels her arms pressed to her sides, as she watches the snakes come closer. Both unnaturally long and wide, both looking at her with brown, attentive eyes. At once, one of them tilts its gigantic head and hisses loudly. The moon reflects on its sharp teeth. And, finally, Louis feels a jolt through her bones and she backs out, tripping over herself, against the sink, falls through the door, slams it shut, a silent scream vibrating in her throat.                     

 

 

-*- 

 

 

Conversation next morning is even less smooth than last time.  

Harry is still quiet and withdrawn, curls hiding her expressions. But Louis got a glimpse of her cheeks and the burns are indeed gone, leaving nothing but smooth, rosy skin in their absence. Her only reaction to Louis’ hand on hers is a tired smile. Niall, the dear, tries to create warmth by making hot chocolate for everyone and asks how the trip to the church went. When Louis tells her about the grave of her great-grandmother, she covers her shock with a comment about fascinating coincidences, then talks about her dead aunt’s obsession with amulets. The one Niall is wearing under her sweater is shaped like an apple. She makes the others show theirs, all of them wearing necklaces with pendants made of silver and crystals.  

Liam’s laugh sounds forced when Louis makes a joke about them being a cult. She has rings under her eyes, and an arm wrapped around Zayn. Zayn, who hasn’t stopped staring at Louis all throughout breakfast. She never speaks, never smiles, never opens her plump lips. But she winces when Louis speaks of the dream she had last night.  

“I must’ve been so exhausted,” Louis says, shaking her head. “That I dream of two humongous snakes in your bathroom just, like, chillin’ there.“  

She doesn’t mention that her flip flops lay tossed in front of the bed when she woke up, or that her skin has gotten drier and drier, or that she hadn’t fully drifted into a deep sleep all night.  

“Yep,” Liam says. “That’s fucking weird, big snakes don’t even live around here. Your mind bust be crazy imaginative, probably.”  

Niall’s face twists uncomfortably, so does Harry’s. More secrets. Great. Louis guzzles her orange juice.  

 

 

-*- 

 

                                     

The liquorice-y smell of fennel still hangs in the air when she prepares to leave the house well after lunch, the sky already a dark grey. Harry had cooked, patiently explaining the protective energies that lie in various vegetables as she prepared them for the oven. It felt painfully domestic, sitting by the counter and watching her cut up potatoes into even squares, washing the brussels sprouts and braying chili. But it’s not just missing a steady home that let the nostalgia flourish in her chest, it’s the longing for romance, for intimacy, for love. Louis misses the touch of a girl, a mouth pressed against hers. And Harry’s mouth is awfully alluring when she licks the sheen of butter from her lips.  

“Thank you for all this,” Louis says, making a broad gesture. She’s looking at Niall, too, who is sitting by the front desk and staring at the picture of the two laughing children. But it’s mainly Harry whom her smile is for. It’s the food and the shelter but most of all the company she’s acknowledging, and judging by the lowering of her lashes, Harry understands.     

“Please be careful,” Harry digs her hands into her sparkly cardigan and moves closer, leaning against the peachy wall. “Eve is... nice, most of the time, but she can be really... complicated. Also. Uhm. I made you something last night.” 

It’s a necklace. Shaped like tear drop, delicate silver revealing something glimmering inside. Hues of pink and red and orange swirl together like flames, it smells like smoke and ash, like it rested in fire for a few hours. “It’s for protection. It won’t do much on its own, but, uhm, it’s better than nothing. Its powers are amplified by the moon, but I think you - I think it’s best when you come back before the sun sets.” 

Harry keeps rambling about it, mentions oils and purification, blush rising high in her cheeks. Louis stares back and forth between her and the pendant and feels tears gather in her eyes. She bites her lip, wills herself not to cry at this small act of affection and care but there she goes and she’s sniffing and hiccupping and pulling Harry into her arms. “Thank you,” she murmurs past the gasps. They clutch each other for minutes, swaying back and forth in the hallway, warmth of the room lulling them in. The smell of herbs clings to Harry’s hair and Louis presses her nose into it, and in this instant all her physical pain is gone, all her mental clouds have vanished, all the cold in her muscles melts away.                                  

Outside, the wind whips against her face. Tiny droplets splatter against her forehead and the pavement, spreading patterns on stone and coats and asphalt. The mountain endures the rain, endures the clouds crowding along its spiky peaks, stands its ground against a raging storm coming in from the distance. Its shadow doesn’t waver, keeping most of the town hidden. The walk to the church is unpleasant. There is no one out, not even the shop keeper in the store by the corner is in; red neon sign flickering sadly. At least she’s not getting stares when she stops and leans against a lamppost or an overflowing fountain, wiping her neck of sweat and water. The pain sits no longer in the bottom of her spine. It is a pulsing ache in her whole body, down to the soles of her feet, like the cramps she used to get when her period first started.  

Inside the church, she sinks onto a wooden bench in the back. It creaks under her weight. While she’s regulating her breathing, she stares at the cross. The figure truly doesn’t look as pained as it does on other crucifixes and its body not nearly as sickly, drenched in a golden light by the candles that are placed around the room today. Louis herself distanced herself from religion when her grandmother died but in that second, she wants to fall to her knees and cry. Maybe her pain can mean salvation, too. If not for her, then for her sisters.    

The bench groans as another person slides onto it. Eve is dressed in a black turtleneck, hair pulled up into a bun, small book resting on her thighs. She’s also wearing an assertive expression that makes it even harder to determine her age. “So, you came back. I was kind of hoping it’d be enough to know she’s here.” 

Louis breathes out with a smile. “I need to know more. About her and I.” 

“Well, I do want to help you.” 

“Why?” 

“For one, Harry trusts you.” Eve’s gaze travels along Louis’ neck and to where her open coat reveals the pendant. “And I... I’m glad to know you’re alive and here. But I will also always love your great-grandmother greatly.” 

The palms of Louis’ hands begin to prickle in anticipation. Did her great-grandmother leave notes? Diaries? Messages? Maybe the book is addressed to her descendants, a detailed explanation of the curse. Is that why Eve feels like she knows her? Loves her? She wants to ask ask ask a thousand questions, but she senses Eve’s decision to go through this her way.  

Eve’s grin exposes her teeth. “I will always be grateful for her generosity. For renewing this place. For allowing it to keep existing, despite all those that want to see it gone. This wasn’t always a Christian church, you know? You probably do. Then you know that the tomb is much, much older. And the ground has been made... sacred, you’d say, even longer. All kinds of forces meet in this place, they come together.”  

The paths. The paths that lead up to it, connected by flowers and dry land. Maybe they weren’t town planning after all.  

“I’m still not sure why I agreed to take in the five of them – again - when they came knocking on the door,” Eve murmurs. “Maybe because I was ready to welcome in another force, maybe because... because I wanted to set things right. And see what it led to... Now that you are here, too. Numbers repeating themselves.” 

The five of them? Louis blinks at her. Is she talking about the girls? Who is the missing one? 

Eve knocks onto the back of the book. “I’m just hoping this isn’t a repetition of that time. You haven’t been visited by someone who looks like me have you? Same blue eyes but lighter hair? Lighter appearance in general, much lighter. She’d probably try to harm you.” 

Louis swallows with an arid tongue. Shakes her head. “Who would try to harm me?” 

“My sister,” Eve says, void of emotions. The candles flicker in a cool breeze. “So you didn’t meet. Maybe she decided to stay away once and for all.” 

“Why would she want to harm me?” 

“Because of what you are.” 

“But what _am_ I?”  

At that, Eve looks at her with bewilderment. Then her mouth forms a circle. “You haven’t... Oh. Oh, well. That explains a lot. How strange. A late bloomer, hm?” 

A beeping whirrs in Louis’ ears, quickening her thoughts. “This is about the curse, right? The one that killed my mother, and will -” 

“Curse?” Eve asks and laughs. The sound is like a snap of a twig in the forest; acquainted yet startling. “Oh, you two would get along. You haven’t talked to the girls about this have you? I imagine Zayn would have a lot to say.” 

Zayn?? The girls?? _They Know??_ “What? What do you mean -, what is it? Do you know what is happening to me?” She’s gotten shrill towards the end, stops herself from clutching onto Eve by digging her nails into the bench.  

“Oh, dear. I say you should go back and tell them you’re ready. They’re probably worried you won’t believe them.” 

“Harry’s told me about her -. About her ability.”  She fiddles with the string of her necklace.

Again, Eve laughs. “Ability, yeah, that’s a fitting name. Have you seen it yet? Beautifully frightening, isn’t it?” 

Louis ignores her. “Please. You said, you want to help. Tell me how I'm tied into all of this. Why is my great-grandmother in that tomb and not buried in a normal grave? Why did she send away her daughter? Why am I cursed?” 

No more patient waiting for others to talk. No more waiting for the answers to find her. No more waiting. She sits upright and meets Eve’s contemplating gaze with her own firm one. A sigh. “When the tomb was... rediscovered, your great-grandmother said she wanted to be with her ancestors in death. That tomb is for those like her, like you. Like the girls. Like the first five. She was ecstatic when the wall gave in and revealed that statue, was angry at me for never telling her about it. She made me realise that... that I can’t hide everything. That some things need to be dealt with. My sister... disagrees. She killed most of them. Your great-grandmother and three others.” 

Dread. Dread drawing in the nausea in her stomach again, swirling around in her chest like one specific thought in her head: That nothing makes any sense. 

“Now, as to why you are the way you are... I can’t tell you. In the beginning, there were five of you, too. Five girls who came together on this very ground centuries ago, five sisters. They were birthed right here. Grew up together, loved and cherished. Until, well... Until, one by one, they... changed. And their mother saw what happened to them by night. So she ran away, abandoning them, and so they came to me. And eventually they bore children of their own. When they died, this place kept their bodies safe, it still does. It kept the bodies of your kind safe for centuries.” The ground is littered with dirt, tiny shards of glass and dried plants. It’s hiding the tomb below with a plain matter of negligibility. Eve bows her head. “During the witch hunts, they were practically slaughtered. Some were able to leave the city, some were too prideful to run. I... I took care of all-. All the bodies of those who stayed.” 

Louis presses her lips together, fights against the bile rising in her throat. She doesn’t understand.   

“But this place will always draw in those of your kind,” Eve continues. “Therefore, five of you came back in-… in the late nineteenth century. They built the house you’re staying in, the one that belongs to Niall now, and decided to blend in and tried to hide - and seeing you and the girls, you’re still hiding. Good for you.”                 

Blending in or deciding to stand out will always be a painful topic. One that she would usually engage in, one that she _knows_. But this isn’t the time. “My great-grandmother was one of them, right? The ones that came back?” 

“Yes. Though, she was the one most interested in your heritage. Always arguing with the others.” An almost inconspicuous smile dances around Eve’s lips. “She used to be the one who went into town dressed in extravagant clothes. For a few months, she had a short, brief affair with some local man. She got pregnant and then... my sister, she -. She wasn’t thinking right. She thought she’d have to kill them all, that it was her specifically whom she had to kill first. But the baby survived, miraculously, it survived. To keep it safe from my sister, I gave it away. To ensure that it wouldn’t have to suffer -” 

“You chose wrongly,” Louis chokes out, before she realises what she is saying. “ _You_ gave her away? You said you – you brought the bodies to the tomb, I -. What...” 

“You still haven’t realised that I'm not human, silly?” Another toothy smirk. Her canines look normal in the candle light. “Oh, the fangs only appeared for my kind in the late modern era, I'm much older. One of the first. I don’t even apply the word vampire to myself, to be quite honest.” 

Louis closes her eyes and presses her knuckles against her lids. Breathing deeply, she feels her pulse hammering in the vein on her neck. “You were there. You where there when she decided to give away her child. And when this place was...” 

“I was here when the first five were born, when this was nothing but small cottage and powers coming together. And I was here when your great-grandmother came back. And I was the one that saved her daughter, your grandmother, and sent her away.” Eve groans. “I tried to tell the others, but they wouldn’t listen, and my sister got to them. All but one of them, who never left the house. I tried to help when Niall’s parents -. When Niall’s aunt took in the role as her mother. I was there when Zayn and Liam came through the woods, and I've been hoping to help Harry ever since she ran away from home and hoped to find a new one here.” 

Harry ran away? She opens her mouth to inquire further, and then pauses. It is already a breach of trust that she knows of this. Instead, she picks at the dry skin of her cuticles. “Whenever there were five of... them - “ _“_ _\- of you - ”_ “- something happened, right? So it’s likely that something will happen again.” 

“Back then, the first time, when my sister – it was my sister who was --, who was responsible for the five of them seeking help from me. My sister killed your great-grandmother and I believe she was the one who set up the villagers that destroyed the church and the house. She was around, kept pestering me and she’s not easily disposed of. But eventually she stopped trying to slip past the charms I put on this church, and that were put on the guesthouse.” 

Louis slides down the bench, tip of her shoes hitting the one in front of them. The Christ figurine looks back at her in blissful ignorance. “Is it your sister’s task to torment our lives? She’ll spend her life... her existence as a vampire making it hard for us?” 

“Oh, my sister isn’t -” There is a brief stiffening of Eve’s body but then her expression crumbles into soft nostalgia. “It isn’t her fault.” 

The pulse in the vein on her neck has sped up, is now a low hammering in the back of her skull, spiralling her thoughts. How could Eve think that? How can she forgive the murder of four people? 

“Did you really love my great-grandmother?”  

Eve turns to her, surprise written on her face. “I think so, yes.” 

“So why did you let your sisters kill her? Why did you let her give away her child, giving her away into unknowingness and danger, letting her believe she was alone? My grandmother approached life with nothing but fear and the wish to escape, and she passed that to my mother!” Her throat hurts. Her eyes sting. Her muscles ache. “Leaving this place didn’t prevent this curse, it only ensured that neither of them knew how to handle it, how to – how to survive it! They hated themselves so much they never told me their secret! How could you, how could you do this to us.” And she breaks down crying, sobs jarring her upper body, vision blurry, the church around her becoming a dim silhouette around her.  

She never felt this lonely. With her siblings and step-dad miles away, with all contacts to her friends broken off and abandoned, with the four girls across town, not even Harry near her, Harry who might feel warm and trustworthy but is nothing but a new acquaintance. With a vampire sitting next to Louis, motionless and unmoved. Every cell in her seems to shift and twist. She can’t rely on the outside, can’t rely on people, can’t rely on her own body.  

Her cries echo around her, adding to the humming in her ears until her mind becomes one with the white noise, flattening out, becoming fuzzy at the edges. She feels the tears on her cheeks as if she was imagining the texture of them through seeing them on a screen, knows her limbs are moving but can’t recall instructing them to do so. Distantly, she hears Eve utter an apology. But she shakes her head, no no no, stands up. The walk down the aisle takes a century, the opening of the door the strength of a thousand forces, the look upwards a split of a second. The stars are out. They are no longer hiding behind dark clouds, share their gleam with the moon, intensifying it.                                                                         

She imagines feeling the flow of various energies around her, imagines walking on ley lines, walking on pulsating powers in the earth. They carry her, take her away from the church and through the city, leading her towards the guesthouse. The necklace resting on her chest sends a warm thrum towards her heart. She passes the bus station, passes the restaurant. But all other buildings fuse into one solid block, a shade that merges with the shadow of the mountain. Her feet walk on their own, crushing fallen leaves. Some of them have already turned a weak grey; hues of orange and red fading at the edges like flames swallowed up by ashes.  

By the corner store she realises someone is walking a few hundred metres behind her. Their silhouette is nothing but a fleeting flicker in the cool light of the moon, their shoulders hunched, their stride silent. Behind the curtains of the windows to her left is darkness, no sign of life flits in the empty rooms or looming balconies. There are no sounds but the sighing of the trees. But then – a rustling to her right. Leaves grating and twigs snapping. She doesn’t dare to stop in her haste, doesn’t dare to turn around again. Frantically she searches for something, someone hiding behind the hedge of an abandoned front yard, looks for someone leaping out and grasping her. Her fingers fumble in the pocket of her jacket, clasp around nothing but coins and thin paper, start trembling. There is nothing there. Not in her grasp and not behind the hedge.  

In the distance, half hidden by a drooping advertisement for pet food, is the street sign that means the guesthouse and safety and warmth. Louis breathes out and concentrates on that, not on the gigantic mountain standing high and forceful behind the roofs that seem a dirty maroon in the night, not on the shaking of her hands, not on the fear that clutches her sweaty limbs. But then a sudden, cool light seems to glow behind her. It freezes the back of her neck, it bites the hollows of her knee, it distorts her own shadow. She whirls around. The person behind her is now a stone’s throw away. But their body is no more visible than it was before. Because a bright shine radiates from them, hurls towards her, like a claw reaching for its pray, like a lightning bolt piercing a tree, so blinding it hurts her eyes. She knows that light. Has felt it within her own body, within her arms. Louis runs. She runs so fast and abruptly, the muscles in her thighs scream in agony, she runs so fast the crumbling houses and riddled hedges become a blur in the edges of her vision, she runs so fast the breath in her lungs can’t escape. The skin on her back prickles but whether it’s the light or her fright, she doesn’t know.  

There it is! The tear in the door. As soon as she falls towards the wall of the guesthouse, the person grows larger. In the alley, darkness turns into expanding light in an instant. It’s a ghost. Skin as white as the bursts of energy flowing from its invisible mouth. Louis can’t see anything else, can only stand there, with the door already opened, with a cry stuck in her throat, waiting to lose even more control over her body. And then she is pulled back, into the door. The ghost’s energy sizzles into nothing. A shrill sound booms through the night and it takes her a bit to realise that it isn’t her own scream, but a screech coming from the ghost, expanding and decreasing in waves until it diminishes completely. Like watching a fire collapse in in itself, the ghost crumples into the thin air, leaving darkness.  

Louis’ arms aren’t her own. Nor are her legs. Is she even standing? Her body is one long muscle, and yet it shakes and shakes and doesn’t produce motion. It is cold, too, so icy cold it solidifies the breath in her lunges, her lungs that feel compressed and small. The only warmth radiates from her chest. No. From the necklace. It is almost too hot, charged with energy, roaring with it.  

When a soft hand touches her shoulder, she realises she had closed her eyes. She flinches but recognised the gentle drawl asking her if she’s alright. Harry stands in the doorway, Harry with panic written all over her face, Harry with curls clinging to her temples and sweat running down her neck. With fresh burns on her skin. Something in her face gleams in the dark. And there is Niall behind her, barely illuminated by the moon falling through the open door and through the class ceiling of the building.  

“Louis,” Harry says in a tone that indicates she’s been speaking for a bit now. “Louis, let’s rest, yeah?” 

“No-,“ she forces out. “No, no I can’t-“ She’s trembling, every part of her is trembling.  

“Let’s go upstairs,” Niall whispers, and they do.  

With a weak shake of her head she manages to communicate that she doesn’t want to set foot into the iron lift, and so they carry her up the stairs, each of their arms slung around her torso, lifting her. The one good thing about losing touch with her body is the absence of pain. Distinctly she can detect a sharp stretching in her muscles that should translate as discomfort. but the trace of fear in her mind is the only discomfort that is of value. What happened? Why did the ghost leave? Why can’t she use her feet but feels no other spirit possessing her?  

She’s placed on an unfamiliar bed. The mattress gives in easily, worn and saggy. Harry’s scent is all around her. Slowly, the room around her manifests. Hues of warm colours make up the majority of the surfaces, round carpets cover the floorboards, lots of cushions piled in corners, a big wardrobe is varnished with a painting of an apple tree. And candles. So, so many of them. Attached to a chandelier, on top of a desk, floating in bowls of water. They create a yellow glow that drapes itself over every object and the two faces looking at her in worry. Niall’s hair looks almost gilded. Harry’s eyes are no longer green.  

Louis wants to say something, ask what happened, how they found her in the right moment, but she manages nothing but a wheezed sob. Immediately, Harry sits down beside her, blanket bunching around her hips. Fingers stroke over the back of her hand and, oh, there they are; there are her hands. She can move them, bend them, close them. She brings them up to her face and studies the thin layer of green flakes that tumble onto her naked chest. Harry wraps her into the blanket, covering the scales that evaporate into nothing. 

Again, she cries. Niall is perched by the end of the bed, watching them as Harry begins to caress Louis’ hair, stroking over the curve of her forehead. “It’s okay,” she hums. “You’re safe. Nothing will happen to you in here. It’s gone.” 

But it isn’t, it isn’t gone. It’s inside of her and it breaks out without her consent and it takes over every cell in her weak body. She is a monster. 

“No,” Harry says forcefully. “Don’t think that. This is beautiful.” 

“ _No_ ,” Louis rasps, pulling up the blanket to her chin. Desperately, she looks up at the two.  

Harry’s lips tremble, she glances at Niall with a furrow of her brows. “I -. Maybe it’s best to show her.” 

The other breathes in visibly, nodding to herself. The flames flicker when Niall stands up and lets her robe slide onto the carpet, skin covered by nothing except the amulet around her neck. But then... then a sheen expands on her chest, on her thighs, on her face. Her arms fall to her sides, merging with it, her legs become one, she gently sinks to the floor, growing and growing, silvery-blue scales covering her every inch. It’s horrifying. It’s grotesque. In a few seconds Niall transforms from human into a large snake that curls itself into a ball and rests its head on its enormous body, blinking at her with familiar eyes.  

Louis scrambles up the bed, getting as far away as her strained muscles allow. With the motion the blanket bares her own torso and reveals the rosy skin, still covered in patches of scales. With hot tears trailing down her face, she rubs at them, dusting them off her, self-loathing simmering in her heart.  

“Louis,” Harry says vigorously, grasping her wrists. “Louis, look at me. This isn’t evil.” 

She stares back into her face, into her beautiful, burned face, still glowing of sweat, eyes shimmering with something that aren’t tears. Genuine compassion lies in the core of her expression, a truth she is convinced of. “But it’s what killed them,” she whispers.  

“No,” Harry objects with rigor. “No. Trying to supress it is what killed them.” 

 Her big hands are tender around Louis’ forearms. The pendant resting on her collarbone answers with a radiating warmth. It’s still pulsating slightly. Hesitantly, Louis dares to examine the snake lounging on the carpet. Specks of beige dot its silver skin, black streaks around its head like a necklace. Like the amulet around Niall's neck. The blue eyes focus on her patiently. “Niall?” A dry laugh bursts through her mouth when the snake moves its giant head in a nod. At the same time, the urge to cry won’t leave. “You understand me?“ Another nod.    

Harry let’s go of her wrists and leans against the headrest next to her. Their shoulders are pressed against each other, sweat sticky and soft. Louis tilts her head towards her. “You, too?” 

“Yeah.” 

She swallows. Tries to calm her anxiety. “The snakes in the bathroom?” 

“Zayn and Liam. They like it wet.”  

Despite herself, Louis laughs again. Then she cries some more. Then she reaches for Harry’s hand and brings it up to her mouth to kiss her knuckles. “Is that why the ghost couldn’t take over my body? I transformed?” 

Harry traces the pad of Louis’ lips, her finger silky against her chapped skin, and makes a noise of consideration. She shifts, pressing closer. “No, I don’t think so. Ghosts can enter any body that has a human resemblance. It must’ve been the close proximity to the house, we pulled you inside in time. There are spells and charms ingrained in every inch of the walls. They go deep into the grounds. For, uhm protection and safety. When you... when you chose a key, or rather, the house suggested a key to you, it accepted you. And... and your necklace, too. It wouldn’t’ve worked on its own but makes it harder to for outside forces to control you.” 

Absentmindedly, Louis fondles the pendant. It’s still humming with energy. “Did it absorb some of the ghost’s powers? It feels hot.” 

A nod, then Harry looks down and a sudden blush spreads around her nose, deepens the red of the scars. Louis looks down herself and sees her breasts exposed in the warm air. She adjusts the blanket with a grin.  

“Uhm,” Harry murmurs, still flushed. “Yeah, yes. It probably did.”   
“Well, then. Thank you, Love.” 

Another wave of rosy bashfulness. “Don’t. Not for that.” 

“So, is it gone? Is the ghost... did it stop existing?” 

The night presses against the windows, trying to slip in with the wind that creeps through the walls, wailing and howling and sighing. Like a ghost. Harry shakes her head. “No. A ghost only passes over when it fulfils the task that prevented it from dying in the first place. Do you... did you see its face? Do you know who it was?” 

Louis feels a flash of fear go through her heart. “I didn’t,” she says with a sigh. “It was all – it was all light, just... Maybe it was the one from France. Maybe he followed me.” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Harry whispers, but it’s too quiet and distant.  

“Do you think it’s safe for me to go out?” 

The wind is still echoing in the hollows of the house. There is no rushing from the street, no one driving in the alley, and the shine of the candles drowns out every star in the sky that is barely visible between the curtains. The outside is nothing but a memory. If she closes her eyes, if she ignores Harry’s scent then maybe – but when she shifts just an inch, the rocky side of the mountain looms behind the house across the street, a forceful reminder. She is here, and she can’t escape.  

Finally, Harry exhales shakily and says: “I honestly don’t know. You shouldn’t take off the necklace, just to be safe. And I'll make you another one. Uhm. Maybe, maybe I could... use my, uh, my thing to find out whether-” 

“No!”, Louis stops her. She couldn’t bear causing those burns. “No, you can’t! It’ll be fine, you’ll make me another necklace, and if it comes again – maybe we can be prepared. Maybe we can help it. Find out what it wants.” 

“I can help you-” 

“You refused my help yesterday, remember? Now I'm refusing yours.” 

They gaze at each other, Harry’s green eyes widened in desperation, Louis’ jaw set. She won’t let her suffer because of her. 

From the floor resounds a noise like paper chafing against stone. The snake – Niall – unfurls, flames reflecting in its mirror-like surface, and slithers towards the door, expanding the opening with its snout. It doesn’t bump against the table leg in its way or the flower pot by the wall, slips out swiftly. It’s at least eight metres long. Far away, somewhere in the depths of the house, a quiet hiss echoes through the night. Louis tries not to let it show but it sends another spark of horror down her spine. Her spine that... that doesn’t hurt? She touches her ribcage, pushes against her joints, stretches her legs, gasping incredulously. “Does the necklace heal, too?” 

Harry giggles, short and delightful. It’s a relief to hear. “No, no, that was your transformation.” 

“My...” 

“Why do you think you’ve been hurting these past months? Your body was preparing itself. You’ll probably be in pain again, but the more and the longer you’re in your other form, the less pain you’ll experience in this one. You can only turn at night, tho. We don’t know why, but I suspect it’s something about the moon.” 

A different sort of pain constricts her lungs. Louis thinks of her mother, of her grandmother, being afraid of this all their lives, trying to fight it, suffering with it and without it. Locking themselves in in fear of being seen. Her eyes burn with tears that won’t come. The feeling reminds her of another thing. She turns around, not caring that her naked chest is exposed, and grasps Harry’s bicep. “Darling..,” she utters. “Why are your cheeks... why did you...?” 

A flicker in Harry’s expression mimics the dance of the flames around them. The thought of her skin burning makes it hard to breathe. She still doesn’t understand how any of this works, why the five of them can turn into snakes and why they found each other, why the ghost was after her, why Harry must experience agony for her to use her gift. Slowly, she traces the red lines with her pointer finger, careful not to touch them. They aren’t blistering, aren’t deep. But Harry’s lower lip trembles and her next inhale is shaky. “It was getting dark and... You weren’t... you weren’t back yet, and so I lit a few candles just to... just to get a feeling of whether you’re safe or not. And I could, I could _feel_ your emotions - I've never – I’ve never felt someone else’s emotions this strongly. You were confused and anxious, and then you were very suddenly... it was like you were floating. Like you were separated from me through a fog. And it – it scared me, so I...” 

“You did this... because of me?” Louis’ face contorts in horror. She was trying to prevent this from happening! Her heart constricts.  

“This is _nothing_ , I thought - someone already got you, I thought – fuck, I thought we’d never see you again. So I woke up Niall and I – I did it properly. The way I told you it works. I saw that you were simply dissociating, but then something... something so incredibly strong and powerful took over and I was feeling so much pain, ” - Harry’s voice scratches against her eardrums, hoarse and frightened - “, and Niall had to help me to get me out of my – out of that headspace. We could see you through the window, tho. And then the ghost, too.” 

“You saved me,” Louis whispers.  

Harry shakes her head. “I didn’t do anything, I could only... see. It was the spells and the charms that saved you. And you, running fast enough.”    

She doesn’t think that’s the truth, but she’s too overwhelmed to say anything. All she can do is stroke a greasy curl behind Harry’s ear and thank her again. Convey her gratefulness by a careful touch of her thumbs against her temples. Then she hugs her close, hand sliding to the back of her neck. Harry loops her arms around Louis’ waist, her hands splayed on her back, rings pressing into the bumps of her bones. It was never more comforting to smell the scent of human sweat and sweet herbs. “It’ll be alright,” she says, quietly convincing herself. “I’ll be careful.”  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

During breakfast there seems to be a tension between all five of them. They all treat her like she might splinter like glass any second, speaking in hushed tones and carefully chosen sentences. Zayn and Liam are told what had happened – and they suddenly shift in their entanglement on their chairs, something loosening in their attitude. When everyone is busy eating their pancakes, Louis sees them kiss in the corner of her vision and realises it’s trust that they show her. As it turns out, Liam studied the classics which offers at least an attempt to explain all these entwined events. In her version, Eve is telling bullshit about the first five women being... like this from their birth on, and were, instead, cursed by a goddess or god. Niall believes what her aunt told her: A detailed version of Eve’s story that sees the curse not as such, but as a gift to allow them agency over their bodies. Inevitably, Louis seeks out Harry’s opinion. She, too, speaks of it as a gift. Despite that, Louis detects a desolation in her eyes that holds fear and apprehension.  

“We can only turn at night. Which, uhm, is why I think it has something to do with the moon. There’s a lot of moon magic, you know, like... it affects us. Obviously, it’s also triggered by emotions – that’s why you started turning last night – and those are affected by the moon, uhm, and -”  

Niall interrupts her with a waggish grin: “Sex gets complicated Louis, lemme tell you. Better get used to doin’ it when the sun’s out.” 

In one simultaneous movement, Zayn and Liam lean back and smirk, intertwining their hands. But Louis can’t laugh, feels herself paling and Harry stiffing beside her. The past year was one continuous longing for someone by her side and, yes, that included sex. Is she deemed to repeat her mother’s actions? Locking herself in by night, distancing herself from her loved ones in case of a sudden burst of emotion?  She stares at her hands, at the texture of them, the wrinkles on her knuckles, the white crescents on her nails, the veins faintly visible by her wrists. The memory of her first kiss pops into her mind. It had been dry and uncoordinated and taut, less than she ever dreamed of and yet more. She wonders whether that girl would have kissed her if she knew what she was.  

Harry’s pinkie coils around her own. 

“It’s not important why we are the way we are,” Niall goes on. “It’s best to concentrate on what is important in the here and now. You need to learn how to safely turn – your great-grandmother would want you to.”  

It goes straight to her heart. Here she is, feeling some strange connection to her ancestor whom no one would ever even speak of, a deep sense of obligation to set right was what treated so wrongly in her family. Maybe it’s because her grandmother had been distant and strict, maybe because the last months of seeing her mother in pain in mind and body were the most excruciating of her life, maybe because something deeper, magical bound them together. “Did your aunt ever speak of her? And the other four that came back in the nineteenth century?” 

Niall noticeably falters. “Only a few times. It was the only story she didn’t like to tell a lot, because it ended that badly, you know? My aunt loved the happy stuff, the heroines. I mean, her grandmother was one of them and they were very close, because – see, err. Her grandmother never left this house after all the other four died. And she even forbid my aunt and... and my mother to go out, too.” 

“It was Eve’s sister who killed them, right?” All four of them stare at her for a second before lowering their gazes. “What? What is it?” 

Harry, her finger still around Louis’, clears her throat. “We’re not sure if that sister actually exists.” 

“What?” Does that mean Eve created someone to blame? Was it Eve who killed the five that came back?  

“She barely, barely talks about her. She’s quick to talk about her life, to talk of all kinds of unimportant things, but she never talks about her sister. She says she had something to do with the first five appearing on Eve’s doorstep. But, uhm. We think it was Eve who basically stole the first five. To add another kind of power to her little collection of powers in that church. She once convinced a folk of nymphs to stay at her church and give some of their powers to the grounds, she's... Eve is greedy.” 

“You think she created the story of a sister to justify her... kidnapping? Do you think she killed the five that came back?” 

Harry shrugs. A curl slides down her temple and brushes the wound on her cheek. “I can’t see the past or the future. It’s always about emotions and occasionally the slight hunch of what’s about to happen. But whenever I concentrate on Eve, there is a... uhm, just the feeling of a lot of lies and pain hiding something big. Also... Vampires aren’t born, they’re turned. That means her sister would’ve been turned, too, and while that may be possible, the chance is... low. Except, if one of them turned the other, of course, but uhm... Where is she -” 

“My aunt never told us about someone else killing your great-grandmother and the others,” Niall interrupts again, this time devoid of mischief. “She always said it was, err... that it was suicide. That they killed themselves, that she was the first one. My aunt came home one night and found her dead... she thought the baby was dead, we -. She never knew Eve was there, we didn’t know! We didn’t know you existed, Louis.” 

Louis fully clutches Harry’s hand and looks at their entwined fingers. “You think Eve saved the Baby in time and gave it away? To hide it from the others?” 

Niall’s hands raise in desperation. “We don’t know. Your great-grandmother was just the first, the others followed. Two of them set themselves on fire in the centre of town, the other poisoned herself at a restaurant -. I just know that my aunt’s grandmother wouldn’t go outside and her mother only met her husband because he was a tourist, in need of somewhere to stay. Until he fucked off, too, of course. My - … my mother and my aunt grew up barely leaving the house, too. Until she -. And my parents died in a car accident, which fuelled my aunt’s fears. Until she died, two years ago and I -,” her voice flattens out, her next words come out blank and distant. “She wanted to be buried in the woods, on the mountain. So I brought her there. There is a junction of two powers meeting in the forest, like ley lines. It's why, when I walked back, that I met these two. Zayn and Liam – it was night, and they turned right in front of my eyes. So I took them in.” 

The vision of a younger Niall carrying her dead aunt up the mountain, scared and lonely, unfurls in Louis’ mind. “Do you think it’s.. Fate that brought me here? More of those power lines?” 

“ _Yes,_ ” Harry says quietly, pulling her bottom lip into her mouth. “If we knew about you, we would’ve tried to find you, I swear. I still want to find all the others that are like us, all over the world. We belong together.” 

A pressure in her lungs, that had been growing and growing until it pushed against her throat, now threatens to spill over. Louis swallows and wills herself not to cry again. She keeps bursting into tears, it was the first thing she did this morning. The soft land of her dreams had let her go, she had opened her eyes, seen Harry cuddled into the blanket next to her and had started bawling. The first time in months she spent naked in a bed with another girl, she was sobbing and sniffing pathetically. “You told me I’d change something for you. Did you... did you see that in the flames?” 

A flicker of distress dances through Harry’s eyes. Apologetically, Louis strokes her thumb over the back of her hand. “Yeah... Remember when we shook hands and there was that... spark? For me it’s heat that rolls over me in a wave.” She hadn’t imagined that? “The feeling didn’t leave me all day, so I -… yeah. You know. And you did change something, just by arriving. You’re one of us now, you’re back.” A shy smile. The others smile, too, looking at her with shining eyes.  

Louis’ fingers slip out from Harry’s grasp. They bump against her plate, still buttery from the pancakes they’ve had, air still smelling of chocolate and maple syrup. Powdered sugar covers parts of the table like snow. A snow that hasn’t fallen from the clouds yet, but is eminent in the continually icy weather, a reminder of the cold that awaits her in this place. “I can’t stay,” she says.  

“What do you mean?” Liam asks, so sweetly shocked.  

“You were whinin’ about having to grow up without someone who knows how to deal with this thing!” Niall makes an accusing hand gesture. “You need us!” 

“And my family needs me. My sibling! They’re children, and when the girls grow up they’ll need me to explain this to them. To be there for them.” 

It gets quiet. Surprisingly, it’s Zayn who speaks first. Curled against Liam, her voice is as soft as her body language, but equally deliberate. “You can’t help them when you need help, too.” 

Before Louis can argue, Liam leans forward, elbows planted on the table. “Let us at least help you learn how to turn safely. Please. Just long enough.” 

The two of them look at her with pity, Niall with a set jaw and her arms crossed. Louis doesn’t want to see Harry’s expression, knows she’ll find her disappointed and hurt. The space between them feels void of warmth. But they’re right. She has so much hate, so much confusion within her, she won’t be able to take care of her siblings if her mind will always be overshadowed by the same fear that plagued her mother. So she nods.  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

They spent the day inside, Zayn and Liam calling in ill to the places in town they work at during the week, Niall constantly trying to entertain Louis by telling her stories. She recalls a few childhood memories of her aunt telling her tales of Lamias - what they call themselves -, spinning stories into something fantastic and awe-inspiring, their ancestors becoming heroines, warriors and herbalists looking out for the women nearby. It’s a sweet attempt, but it doesn’t help to settle Louis’ stormy thoughts. Especially because Harry only steps out to join them during lunch and dinner, doesn’t speak to Louis and ignores her desperate knocking.  

“Harry,” she pleads, for the third time standing in front of a locked door. “Please, I’m worried about you. Is it... is it because I'll leave again?” But then she feels silly. They just met. They held hands and cuddled, but that can’t possibly be enough to make Harry feel rejected and hurt. “Are you in pain? Is it the wounds?” 

At the silence that follows, she eventually has to go back into the common room where Niall awaits her. They don’t talk about the ghost, they don’t talk about Eve, they don’t talk about the fear that sits stubbornly in Louis’ bones, making them ache again. It’s strange to see Niall wobbling backwards and forwards on a chair when, just mere hours ago, she hadn’t had any limbs and was slithering noiselessly across the floor. Whenever Louis thinks of it, she has to calm her breathing and remind herself, that she’s safe and no one in this house wants to harm her. She still flinches when Niall touches her shoulder or laughs with her teeth exposed or looks at her intensely. It’s a blessing Zayn and Liam keep mostly to themselves, either cuddled in a corner or entirely absent.  

When they have supper and Harry sits across from her at the table, small and quiet, her face is smooth and unscathed again. It’s the only moment all day that Louis doesn’t feel like crumbling into a thousand pieces. But it’s over as soon as Niall proposes the first... lesson. Thus, when the sun has set, and the wind arises, they gather in a circle on Harry’s bedroom floor, everyone dressed in robes and all candles lit. Nothing has changed, except for an arrangement of crystals and herbs on the desk, but no one comments on that. Nor on Harry’s quiet voice.  

“I won’t turn.” 

“That’s probably a smart choice,” Liam says, already lying on her belly. “That way Louis has at least one person that looks familiar.” 

Harry doesn’t react.    
Niall huffs, then takes Louis’ hand in hers and makes her meet her blue eyes. “Please don’t be afraid of me, yeah? I swear to you, I'm the biggest knob in snake form.” 

Louis’ smile doesn’t quite make it, but she hopes her trust weighs out her discomfort. She squeezes Niall’s hand, who promptly let’s go, blows a cheeky kiss and gets naked. The transformation is as horrifying as it was last night. It doesn’t start at one particularly part of her body but is an all-around change, much faster than she remembers, just as disturbing. The snake twists its tale, scales glinting like metal, it’s eyes still human and in the next second, they’re unblinking and calm. Its - Niall’s jaw could swallow Louis’ forearm in one bite.  

Despite her attempt, a squeak escapes her. She notices Harry’s gaze, but it’s Liam who pats her back and says: “You’re doing good, Sunshine. Ready for us?” 

She isn’t. She nods.  

Now that the light is warm and persistent, the two dark snakes don’t look as alike as they did in the pale glow of the moon. There are brown swirls decorating Liam’s back, a beautiful pattern that’s almost soothing. Zayn’s scales are dazzling. Whenever she moves, an iridescent wave shimmers down her tail – because she moves! Wiggling and writhing, bumping her snout against Liam until Louis understands that she is _lolling about_ , satisfied and content. “Jesus Christ,” she gasps.  

Harry glides a hand down Liam’s patterned back, chin propped on one knee. Her robe doesn’t hide the inside of her thighs, skin golden in the glow of the candles. “You wanna touch ‘em?” 

Louis blushes. Embarrassed of thinking about kissing Harry’s legs in a moment like this, nervous about touching one of the snakes, fearful of what all this will bring for her. But she settles on her knees and turns over one of her palms, offering it as if she was trying to communicate with a kitten. All three of the snakes move their heads towards her, elegant and fast in their movements, eyes focused, curling, twisting – and she snaps her hand back. “Sorry,” she stutters, flushing further, and tries it again. This time, only Niall moves. Her pale head prods Louis’ fingers, then stills. Slowly, she strokes the space between her blue eyes. If her siblings could see her now. If her mother-…  

Only when Harry gently nudges her, suddenly close, does Louis feel the tears trailing down her own cheeks. “Do you want to stop?” 

She shakes her head through her crying. Gasping, she tries to explain: “It’s -… I’m just thinking about my mother. How she’d never -… she never let me see her like this. And now I'm...”  

Calmly, Niall rests her head on Louis’ thigh. It’s heavy and cool, much smoother than she thought it would be - and so, so close to her torso, to where her vital organs are just a bite away. She brings up her other hand and trails it along Niall’s mouth. “Is this okay?“  

“We like touch,” Harry murmurs, pointing at Zayn and Liam who are once again one tight knot. “Everything is heightened for us like this. Every vibration, every... uhm, every touch.” 

“Alright.” Louis shuffles and leans against Harry’s side, carefully looking at her. And there it is - the first smile of the day. Wet lips glistening in the light.   

“Do you wanna try to turn?” 

All snakes seem to react to her heart stopping in its race. The bottom of her spine begins to ache, but she hasn’t come this far to back down now. She breathes her yes. Under the observant eyes of the snakes, and Harry’s flustered stare, she lets the robe slip onto the carpet. She was never quite this conscious of the softness of her hips, the cellulite on her bum, her stark collarbones, the pubes curling on her pelvis. Harry’s warmth next to her is all she can think about, especially when she closes her eyes to try and evoke strong emotions within her. They said happiness and love work best, are at least easier to endure than fear and sadness. They told her that strong emotions would be the start, and eventually she’d feel a pull deep inside of her, a sort of switch that is easy to trigger. But she feels too taut to feel happy; and love... she feels devoid of love. All love is distant and unreachable to her. So she gets in touch with the anxiety sitting in her bones, the one that made the past months so painful, the one that arose last night. She thinks about the Ghost.  

Again, she’s only made aware of her body when Harry touches her shoulder. It sends a beam of heat across her otherwise freezing skin. Tears have caught in the corners of her lips, pooled in the dip of her throat, dry on her torso. Her torso that is dusted in scales but decidedly more human. “Why isn’t it working?” It comes out cracked.  

“I don’t think you’re ready,” Harry speaks softly, her distance from the day now gentle compassion. “We’ll try it again tomorrow. We can just, uhm... just hang out for a while. Go to bed early. Try to figure out what to do about that Ghost.” 

Louis searches for impatience or annoyance in her face and finds only empathy. They are so close together she can see the reflections of a few candles in her blown pupils, mirroring the hidden fire in her. She wants to reach out and kiss her, ask why she was so sad today, wants to comfort her. Her breath is quickened from agitation and the urge to touch. Nodding, she slips on the robe again, covering her tightened nipples, her tummy, her flushed chest. “Do you want to turn? I don’t mind just sitting here.” It’s a lie, but a lie with consequences she can deal with.  

But Harry declines her offer and leans back against the end of her bed, draws up her curls into a bun. “I really don’t want to, tonight.” 

“Why?” 

And another lie is voiced, visible by the lowering of Harry’s lashes and the lick over her lips: “I just don’t feel like it.” 

All three snakes hiss quietly. Harry shakes her head, silencing them. “It’s better for all of us.” 

Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t want to explain when Louis inquires further. And thus, they spend another hour in silence, basking in the warmth and the glow of the flames, snakes nudging each other and curling together, Louis wiping away a tear or two, wondering how in the world she ended up in this place.  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

She does something she hasn’t done in a long while. She calls her step-dad. He’s audibly relieved to hear from her, asking about her wellbeing but not about her whereabouts, offers to get the children on speaker. Of that, her siblings squealing in delight and yelling about school and friends and toys, she can only bear a few minutes. With stifled sobs, she excuses herself and hangs up, still crying half an hour after. She’s back in her own room, hugging a cushion and staring at the morning sky. It’s all swirling around in her mind: Her family, the girls, the girls as snakes, the church, Eve, Eve’s possibly non-existent sister, the Ghost, the tomb, the ache in her muscles. All a grey cloud. Imminent, like the mountain.  

At midday, there’s a knock on her door. Expecting Niall, who had eaten breakfast with her, she doesn’t bother removing her mouth from the pillow and shouts a muffled: “Yah!” 

It’s Harry. Dressed in a pink turtleneck and white pants. Holding a tray with steaming bowls that smell heavenly of spices and tomatoes. Her face is unharmed and a rosy colour. “I made some chilli?”  

Inconspicuously trying to straighten her fringe and wipe away the drool and tears, she scuffles to make space. “Oh, God, thank you so much – will you sit with me?” 

Harry doesn’t touch her, but crawls under the blanket and leans easily against the headrest. She asks about Louis’ dreams and whether she’s feeling alright and the same thing that had made Louis feel so comfortable around her from the beginning makes her open up and speak the truth. Her dreams were a mess of dark, twisting shadows, of scorching flames, of spooky monsters hiding in cold places. But they seemed to have settled something in her heart, which is less shaken by fear and horror now. “I’m just still really confused about the story Eve told me, and how it adds up to what you guys were saying -... And I really don’t know how to feel about Eve in general, to be honest. I don’t want to judge her, when we don’t know for sure what happened back then.” 

“Fuck,” Harry says around a spoonful of hot chilli. “I’ve been trying to figure that out since I came here.” 

“How _did_ you come here?” Ever since Eve mentioned Harry running away from home, it has been waiting to come up in her confusion.  

A sigh. But it’s light, a giggle following it. “I’m sorry I was so moody yesterday. I get like that sometimes -” “ _it’s okay_ ” "- I was pretty overwhelmed from... you know. Trying to figure out if you’re okay, and from the Ghost attacking you, and from realising you’re one of us, and from -… uhm, from all of that. Yeah.” 

“It really is okay.” 

An unconvinced hum. “I guess. Well, uh. You really wanna...? I don’t really know how to...“ 

“Eve said you ran away from home,” Louis blurts. Great. Now she’s blushing. To busy herself, she eats some chilli.           

“Did she,” Harry drags out. But there’s a dimple in her cheek. “God, that’s another reason why I dunno how to feel about her. She’s been really kind to me, to us. Helping out when money gets tight, telling us about the past... she explained some stuff to me about my-… my thing. My craft. But if she actually was involved in those deaths back then, if she actually invented a sister just to... I dunno, to keep hold over us Lamias? It just sucks that we’ll never know the truth, that we’ll have to stay careful and cautious.” 

“Has she ever been... manipulative?” 

Harry sets aside her bowl and draws up her legs. Some of her curls have tangled in the wool of her jumper. “No, no, I don’t think so.” 

“But?” 

“But I'm not good with that kinda stuff. I ran away from my parents because I was afraid – am still afraid of hurting them one day. Soon. Eventually, I dunno. But it fucked with my.... perception. They were genuinely concerned about me and I'd feel cornered, they would try to help, and I would lash out at them. When my mother and I spent the nights together, I sometimes, uhm, I sometimes hurt her pretty badly. Mentally. Because, like, Niall told you everything is heightened in snake form, right? And how we can... how we are aware of each other’s presence, can even perceive each other's thoughts? Uhm, that-. Because I have the other thing too, the, uh, seeing, it’s heightened for me. And I would... lose control over the amount of feelings I was sharing, but it was also hard for me to distinguish between her and my thoughts, so I -” Harry rubs at her eyes. Her fingers glisten before she hides them beneath the blanket. “There is something dangerous in me. Something I can’t control and that gets stronger the more I use my ability to see things, the uhm... the fire.” She forms a claw with her hand and mimics ripping out her throat. “I feel it growing in me, it’s burning right here and in my heart, and I know – I saw that it’ll break out soon and, and I don’t know what will happen then, I just know that it scares me.” 

It must be one of the most heart-breaking instances in Louis’ life. Uselessly, she reaches out and caresses Harry’s arm, digging her thumb into her shoulder and tries to bridge the space between them. “Let me hug you, c’m’here,” she tries, but Harry shakes her head, sobs, buries her face in her palms.  

Louis can do nothing but sit beside her, not daring to move closer, her fingers carefully brushing beneath her curls and along her neck, scratching softly. “I’m sorry you’re feeling this pain,” she says quietly, feeling her ribcage breaking open. “I wish I could take it all from you. Darling, I'm so sorry.” 

Harry cries harder, whole body trembling, ugly sounds and reddened skin fading in the grey air of the room, the shadows of the clouds moving over her figure, dimming her vibrant colours and her passion. Behind her, unmistakable behind the window, the mountain reaches high into the sky.  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

It’s night and Louis tries to turn again. This time, the others stay in their human form, she’s the only one flimsily dressed. It makes her feel like she’s giving a striptease but it's a curiously encouraging thought. Niall grins at her, hollering when she disrobes, and Zayn and Liam rest against the wall, smirks barely hidden. Before she sits, she gives a small curtesy. Harry gnaws on her lower lip, blinking rapidly. Louis sends her a coy smile, and then she keeps her flushed reaction in her imagination, clings onto it. Thinks about all the things she wants to do to her, all the ways in which she wants to make her moan and whine and buck her hips. She thinks about her red lips and how they’d feel on hers, on her neck, on her breasts, on her stomach. She envisions her body turning, as it is turning heated and aroused. In the quiet, she hears a low gasp, and wonders if her thoughts are palpable enough to nudge Harry’s consciousness. The pendant is warm against her skin.

It doesn’t work. All it does is leaving her wet and pulsing between her thighs. And Zayn and Liam mumbling something about an infectious energy, excusing themselves and leaving the room. “Are they...” Louis ponders, feeling a mix of embarrassment and pride.  

Niall’s grin causes her to laugh. “They sure are. You’re quite attractive, you know. If you’re ever up for some making out, let me know.” 

The three of them burst into giggles, Harry’s a little loud and brash. When Louis has the courage to take her in, she’s already staring back, mouth almost fraying at the edges where she is wetting it repeatedly. It’s worth it. 

 

 

-*-                                                                                                                                                                                                                

 

 

The next day, breakfast is unreserved and chaotic. Well, for most of them at least. Zayn is still quietly leaning against her lover’s side, watching only. But there is less iron in her stares than before. Her lips even twitch at Louis’ jokes. Liam, however, turns out to be a joy when she’s having fun - the two of them can have quite the amusing back and forth. They all decide that it’s useless to hole up in the house and wait for something bad to happen – Harry with a mask on her beautiful face, but nevertheless agreeing to seek out Eve and confront her. Thus, the five of them venture into the day.  

The town is slumbering beneath the clouded sky, sun peeking out to highlight the empty pavement and deserted streets. Only the trees bring life into the sight, colourful leaves rustling in the wind and dancing along the buildings. Admittedly, Niall causes for some stir, too. She fills the air with laughter and questions, prancing around lamp posts and spreading her arms. “Shit, I’ll never be afraid again! Fuck fear!" 

Liam cackles and catches her in a crushing hug, causing Zayn to stand watching, fond look on her face. Harry, too, watches on affectionately. Louis has not seen her eyes turn sad once today, quite the opposite. They’re full of light, full of wonder. Whether she throws silly shapes with Niall, giggles conspiratorially with Liam, or hugs Louis good morning. Before they left, she insisted on casting a protection spell on them, touching their mouths and mumbling tenderly, lingering a little longer on Louis’ lips. They’re still prickling under the memory of her caress.  

When they enter the church, Louis sees Harry’s hand tremble in the dimness, conjures up her own courage, and grasps it in hers. She feels her pulse in the tip of her fingers.  

Eve awaits them by the entrance to the tomb. The staircase descends into darkness behind her tall figure, no book in her hold for once. But there’s concern in her voice. “I assume you’re in the know.” 

Louis straightens her shoulders. “About being a Lamia? Yes.” 

Niall looks at her tenderly. “We’re trying our best.” 

“Good. You need to adjust as quickly as possible.” Eve says, then turns to Zayn. “I missed our talks.” 

Zayn merely nods. Liam shifts barely visible to the right, shielding her. They’re all wary. Louis decides to get it over with. With a squeeze of Harry’s hand, she clears her throat and says: “A Ghost tried to possess me two nights ago.”  

In the stillness of the church, Eve’s intake of breath is a crack in the atmosphere. It echoes against the columns, drifts up into the ceiling, loses itself among the arcs. “After you came to visit me?” 

“Yes.” 

She sways on the spot, then her posture slackens, lips twist. Eve smooths a wisp of hair behind her ear, then nods towards the office. “I’m gonna get some things. How about you girls sit down somewhere, and I'll be back in a second.” 

They settle into the bench farthest from the altar while she is gone, Harry to Louis’ right and Liam to her left. The cold is pushing through the seams of their clothes, making them shiver, and there’s a moment where they think Eve has gone and run away, but then her footsteps sound on the stone floor, and she steps back into the nave of the church. She carries a Tupperware Box, and a small-bound book. “This,” she states as she slides onto the bench in front of them. “Is your great-grandmother’s diary. I don’t want to give it to you. It’s private, and addressed to me, and it feels wrong to show you. But I also understand that you come here with doubts about my story.”  

Louis feels Liam and Harry shift in discomfort, but she is not embarrassed about feeling apprehension. “She gave it to you before she died?” She deliberately leaves the happenstance ominous.  

“No. Anna, your ancestor,” - a look towards Niall - “, found it when they went through her things after her death. She saw that it was for me.“ 

Louis accept the book from Eve’s outstretched hand and strokes along its lining. Soft, worn leather, used and battered from the years, yellow pages tattered on the sides. Written in blue ink, in the corner of the binding, is her great-grandmothers name. “You could have forged this,” she mumbles, but she’s already reading the first entry.  

“I didn’t. You’ll either have to believe me or see what you can do,” Eve says bluntly. She has opened the box, but there’s nothing but chopped fruit inside. Immediately, the sour smells of oranges and apples sweeten the air.  

She feels Harry pressed up against her side, reading with her. She doesn’t mind, flattens the pages. The writing is neat and small, the addressee consistently the same. It always ends with a: _Yours, Liz_.  

“You can take it with you, I simply ask you to return it undamaged and as soon as you can. If you have any more questions, I will answer them as best as I can,” Eve states before popping a slice of an orange into her mouth.  

Liam seizes the opportunity. “Did she know your sister?” 

A pause. Louis looks up from the book and observes Eve’s hesitation. “Not until her last moments. Then she must have known her quite deeply.“ 

It’s Harry who understand first. Her hand clamps over Louis’ thigh, just a shy away from painful. “Your sister isn’t a vampire. She’s a ghost.” 

With that and an overwhelming sense of panic, Louis’ heart begins to thrash in its cage. It’s as if it’s convinced it only has a fleeting point in time to exist, as if it decided to compensate for an impending death.  

“That’s how she killed them,” Harry whispers brokenly. “She possessed them and made them.... hurt themselves.” 

“Yes.” 

A disturbing sound rings out from her far right. Niall has let out a small sob. “Why?” She cries. “Why did she do it? Why didn’t you tell us from the beginning!” 

Deliberately, Eve picks apart two slices of an orange and slips one between her lips. Once she has swallowed, her expression has covered the brief quiver of pain and despair. “Because it’s my fault that she is the way she is. It’s my fault she became a ghost and it’s my fault she thought she had to kill all five of them.” And then, finally, she recounts: “Our father was a seer, and we aquired his affinity for powers. Only in different ways. I became a collector of all things and she... she became a destroyer. It was often the things I collected that she destroyed. 

"She got pregnant and during that time she became more and more violent. I -. We fought. Vigorously. And I left her, I abandoned her and swore to never speak to her again. Of course, that didn’t work out. One day she arrived here, around seven months later. This was just a small sanctuary back then that I had built, I had gathered the first few of the powers in this place and she must have sensed the junction, the coming together of them. It led her right to me. I pretended to forgive her and so did she, and when the first labour constrictions came, her bodily pain and our buried hatred combined with the forces of this place must have triggered something. Or it actually was some kind of cruel act from a deity, from a god, from a demon. I don’t know. That night, she turned into a snake. And she birthed five daughters, five snakes. By sun rise they were human babies, and they never turned again until they were of age. But when they did... I already told you girls that she left them. She hated herself, she hated her children. We hadn’t been living together for those years, all the hate and what happened simply wouldn’t allow it – but they were close enough, and the energy paths led them to me. The five found me. As you did. As Liz did.”  

Hidden in the shadow of the bench, Harry’s boot nudges Louis’ ankle. She looks up at her and meets her concerned gaze. “Why would your sister kill her own descendants?” 

“She thinks she has to stop it from... Spreading. She sees it as a curse. As something evil she brought into the world.” Louis watches Eve dig through the fruit. Behind her, the altar frames her bent head, pompous arcs joining at the tip like a crown. “Most of the time she’s busy clinging onto this realm, somehow drawing energy from the living. I suspect she is drawing energy from the whole town. Ghosts need humans to manifest properly, and at the same time it’s humanity that made them this way. As do I, as do I as... this. As a vampire. Ironic, isn’t it?” A hint of a sardonic smile closes around a grape. “I think she senses it when five of you come together, as a remembrance of her children. It’s probably best for you to split up, go to different parts of the world. Go back to your families. Or not, you will find others of your kind.” 

 Does this mean they should depart immediately? But she hasn’t yet managed to turn at her will, it’s still an unknown, strange thing in her. Her sudden unwillingness to leave this town surprises her: Now that she seems to have no choice, going back feels wrong. When Harry’s shoulders slump, Louis understands yet another part of her reluctance to depart. She doesn’t want to leave her. 

Liam speaks up in protest: “We can’t go back. Leaving was the only way to keep us safe from our families. And we won’t abandon Niall.” 

Niall is still crying. Louis sees her swaying back and forth and reaches around the back of Harry’s neck to touch her shoulder. “She’s right, we won’t leave you here alone.” 

“Harry,” Eve says. “It’s time for you to go back to your parents. You’ve had your space, you had your break. I told you all I can, the rest is uncertain. Do what’s best for all of you and go back.” 

She remembers what Harry had said, about the fire growing within her, about feeling scared. The memory of her tear streaked face is still burning in her eyes, still breaking her heart. Hesitantly, she slips the hand that was patting Niall’s shoulder, onto the curve of Harry’s back. Gently pressing her thumb into the soft skin of her neck, she murmurs: “Do you want to go back?” 

Violently, Harry shakes her head. “I already have trouble controlling myself here, I don’t - I don’t know what would happen if I'd have to go back. They - they must hate me. I don't want to see them.” 

“Then you don’t have to,” Louis says simply, and ignores Eve’s raised brow to pull Harry into her side. The rough fabric of her scarf scratches her chin, her hair curling in the edges of her vision, but a warm sensation floats through her chest as fingers dig into her coat. For some minutes there is a quiet hiccupping from Harry, Louis trying to soothe her, Niall’s harsh whimpers, Zayn and Liam speaking in low tones, all of them at loss.  

“Are you all bloody mad?” Eve exclaims without a warning and strikes the headrest of the bench. “I’m telling you my sister might be waiting to kill you, and you decide you want to stay – because you’re what? Afraid to face your families? Did you inherit my sister’s stupidity, too? Are centuries not enough to dispel it?” 

Startled into silence, they stare at her. She is right. “I’ll leave,” Louis says. “I will leave tomorrow morning. She only appears when there’s five of us, right? I will leave, and you all will be safe.” 

“No,” Liam and Harry say at once. “No.” 

“You don’t even fuckin know how to not hurt yourself when you turn,” Niall mutters with a stuffed nose. “You won’t be able to help your sisters.” 

Then, Zayn leans forward. Her dark hair slides along her black coat like rippling water. “Your sister will pass over when she has fulfilled what’s keeping her here, is that correct.” They all nod. “I don’t think it’s killing her own descendants, if it was shouldn't it have worked after all these centuries? So we find out what it is.” Her calm eyes come to rest on Harry, just a hint of pity lying in the depths of them. “You can find out what it is.” 

Harry mushes her face against Louis’ coat and groans. “I can only get access to people that are close to me or will impact my own life in a way.” 

“And you think her trying to kill you isn’t that?” 

Louis strokes through the curls on the back of Harry’s head. “What if we summon her, ask her directly? That’s a thing, right? Can’t we use, like, salt to keep her in check? Your necklace kept me safe!” 

Eve laughs. “Goodness, why are you girls either locking yourself in or _trying_ to get killed.” 

“Help us,” Liam pleads before anything else is said. “You said you want to help. You’re always talking and talking, but you never take any action.” 

“Fucking take responsibility,” Niall spits out.  

It’s good to hear her anything but crying, it strengthens something in Louis’ own heart. But with this plan comes something she can’t allow. “We can’t expect Harry to hurt herself just to-” 

“I’m gonna do it,” Harry says, sitting up straight. Her skin is white, almost greenish in the shade of the church. A sheen glistens over her eyes. “If it takes just that, I can do it. But... but it will probably draw her in. She will feel it.” 

Louis bites her lip. She feels a dark queasiness pooling in her stomach, triggering the familiar ache of coolness assaulting her muscles. The prospect of creating a situation that lures in the Ghost, the memory of the loss of sensation in her limbs, the loss of control, make her want to cry and vomit, scream and run. She traces a crack in the leather of her great-grandmother's diary and thinks of her possessed by that evil being, of her made to kill herself. She thinks of the other three who suffered the same fate, and Niall’s ancestors who were afraid of leaving their house. And she thinks of her own mother who would have been raised loving and adoring her body if they hadn’t been sent away. It’s time to set things right.         

“Well,” Eve says. Sucking orange juice from her fingers. “You’re not doing that here. I don’t want her in here ever again.” 

“We can’t do it at ours either,” Niall decides. “I don’t want -… it’s ours. It’s my home.”  

They all understand. Liam, after exchanging a look with Zayn who has a mask of indifference on her face, coughs slightly. “What about where we met? In the forest? On the juncture of the two energy paths? They will surely help, too.” 

Louis closes her eyes. Walking into a forest to inspect the fate of a Ghost and possibly invite it in at the same time is really not what she is in the mood for. A memory of a picnic in the woods by her old home overcomes her. It was before her mother got seriously ill, before she was too afraid to talk to them. All her siblings had been playing tag, their shrill laughs and rosy cheeks an echo in her mind. If the forest has to become frightening to keep her loved ones safe, then so be it. 

Eve chuckles in disbelieve. But, after a few remarks, she agrees to come with them, to act as an amplifier and a connection to her sister. They decide to go tomorrow, at noon, when the sun stands highest. It will allow Harry time to prepare, and all of them a breath before the storm. Their words become frank and straightforward, emotions buried beneath what must be done. Niall has ceased crying, eyes rimmed with redness. Now she offers to search for things left behind by the five that came back, more connections to the Ghost. The wind is the background noise to their contemplation, howling between the columns. The shadows in the entrance to the tomb seems to twist and turn, awaiting them. Before they leave, Eve makes them join their hands and mutters something that seems to be a unity of different religious believes and spiritual notions. Then she offers them the Tupperware container and asks: “Apple?” 

 

 

-*- 

 

                                               

On the way back, they walk hurriedly, and sigh out in relieve when they’re through the door and climbing up the stairs to the guesthouse. The iron lift chimes as Louis feels the pain in her body creep back in, leaning against Harry’s elbow. Inside, she thinks onto a chair in the common room, massaging her joins. Niall goes to make a pot of tea. But their cups, despite being refilled continually, manage to grow cold again and again as they start to prepare. Several cardboard boxes find their place on the table, for her and Niall to sift through. They are full of dusty clothes and old books and jewellery and cracked cutlery. And the occasional silly thing. “Do you, by chance, need a barbie with a missing arm?” 

Zayn and Liam have offered to collect the items Harry needs for protection. It’s mostly herbs and crystals that are already stashed in the house, but some of them have to be as fresh as possible or cut at certain hours of the day or carved into certain shapes. They don’t leave without a dozen more charms cast on them, and their phones clutched in their hands, but the two hours they’re gone, neither Louis nor Niall can concentrate enough to focus on the boxes. They find various pieces that aren’t name-tagged or too young to have belonged to the five that came back, which means they start reading through some diaries to find clues for anything that is mentioned. It feels like a violation of privacy to read through their ancestors deepest and most honest thoughts, and yet it is almost as if they’re fictional characters, waiting to be explored. It’s a connection to her family Louis had been missing for all these years.  

She wishes she could share these emotions with Harry. But Harry has lit a circle of candles and doesn’t leave it for the day, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, arms wrapped around her knees. The darker it gets, the more the glow of the flames reflects on her face, golden light licking at her edges. At least she is nearby, carpet spread on the kitchen floor and her back turned towards them. Louis can look up from her readings to trace the tumble of her curls, her regulated breathing, the shift of the muscles on her back. It’s only when Zayn and Liam have long come back and brought food with them, that Harry stands up and joins them at the table. She doesn’t talk, but doesn’t withdraw completely, either. There’s not much conversation anyway, only the essential updates.  

Afterwards, Louis approaches Harry who stands by the window, looking at the black sky. “Are you sure you want to do this?” 

They stand side by side, not touching, but their body heat colliding. A reflection of their faces stares back at them from the glass. In Harry’s eyes, the light of the room flickers distantly. There are no stars outside, the moon is hidden behind the mountain. It’s just the dark clouds stooping low. Tomorrow, they might be dead. Harry’s hand slips into Louis’, a warm presence absorbing her racing pulse.  

 

 

-*-           

   

 

It’s midnight, when Louis decides she can’t sleep and knocks on Harry’s door. She uses her phone as a torch, heart racing at every moving shadow and howling of the wind. “Come in,” it answers, and she enters into the heat of the room. It’s almost as bright as day, so many candles cover the surfaces. It smells slightly stale and sour, the scent of snakes. Niall is curled up at the foot of the bed, her silver skin glinting. Liam lays beneath the window, her big snout resting on her patterned scales. On the bed, there is a sight Louis hasn’t seen before. It’s Harry resting in Zayn’s arms. They are both naked, but there is nothing sexual about their embrace. Zayn’s fingers clutch Harry so strongly, they leave red dents in her skin, it seems as if Zayn is trying to prevent her from bursting. Harry is shaking. She looks up at her, mouth bitten and bruised. Louis undresses and follows her outstretched hand, crawling onto the duvet. She curves her front against Harry’s back, her own chin placed by Zayn’s shoulder, her hands set on Harry’s pudgy hips. A tear leaves a wet trail down her temple.  

The night advances but is kept out by the heavy curtains. Inside, time doesn’t move. The candles keep their height, don’t burn down, flames everlasting. Even the wind has died down. Slowly, Louis starts drifting off. She isn’t quite dozing, isn’t fully awake. Her limbs have lost sensation, Harry’s heat beneath her fingers suddenly gone. The beat of her heart has slowed, is a soft thumping that travels down her spine. When the others move, the tremors travel through the bed to her skin, the room takes shape in vibrations and temperatures. Then, she feels a nudge at the edges of her mind. A quiet, curious greeting.  

Its shape is familiar, a presence she knows. Louis lets it in, and slowly, Niall’s thoughts trickle into her conception. It’s not as much as distinct words, but emotions and impressions of memories like reflections on water. She’s much calmer in this form, settled into her being, no urge to fill in the quiet or comfort others. Louis, through her, remembers a childhood in this house, fascinating people stopping by, walking hand in hand with an older woman with a kind face. But she can also feel Niall’s sadness about her aunt’s death, and her fear of losing this place, of losing her life tomorrow. It reinforces Louis’ own panic when she dwells on it too long.  

Another nudge. This time, it’s Liam. She’s still by the window, seemingly motionless. But her thoughts are bright and intense, much louder than Niall’s. Louis can’t look at them without a quickening of her heartbeat. But she catches the flash of an abusive hand, the memory of a father that hurt her. She shies away from it, twitching physically, and that’s when she becomes aware of her own body.  

For the first time in ages, her muscles do not hurt. Her bones don’t feel like crumbling any second. The heat around her isn’t just heat. It's almost a shifting force between all objects in the room, through which she can determined exact distances and textures. Harry’s human skin against Louis’ scales is so soft, it feels like it might bruise like a flower petal. Carefully, Louis adjusts herself, rolling into a tight ball. It shifts the particles in the air, the duvet bunching beneath her weight. Harry has turned towards her. Her lips tremble around a smile, cheeks dusted in pink. She brings up a hand and strokes the space between Louis’ eyes, so warm, so careful. And then... and then she turns, too. Louis waits for her, watching.  

Harry is covered in light. The flames of the candles are nothing compared to the hues of orange and red and yellow of her scales, nothing like her magnificence. There is something different, though. Power thrums from her like heat from a bonfire, and it makes sense. But Louis can’t get to her thoughts, Harry is closed off. Not one memory radiates from her, and she shakes her head when Louis prods her with her snout. As an alternative, Louis nuzzles her, conveys her thoughts by trailing along her beautiful body. They nestle against each other, and one by one, the others join them. The last presence overflowing Louis’ mind is Zayn’s. It’s nothing like her human demeanour. Her behaviour is no longer thought-out, no longer restricted, she moves unconstrained and bold, elegant. The pain in her memories is unhidden, her gratefulness for this body so compelling it evokes a gratitude in Louis.  

The five of them coil together, minds merging, one enormous entanglement surrounded by the flicker of the candles, bathed in golden light, loved.     

 

 

-*- 

 

        

The sun shines. It’s high in the sky, above the range of the mountain, its brightness filtered through the leaves. The scent of the trees is muted by herbs that burn around them, sage and eucalyptus and others she can't recognize. Candles swim in bowls of water, desperately trying not to go out in the wind. It blows apart the smoke as if it was never there. Their ancestors’ belongings are placed in the grass between their feet, jewellery glinting in the daylight and the pages of diaries fluttering in the breeze.                            

All six of them stand in a circle. Eve has her arms crossed; she has been irritable since she met them at the edge of the forest. But Louis doesn’t hold it against her, she can feel her own fear trying to turn into anger and hate, can feel her blood wooshing through her veins. Not for the first time, she wonders if it affects Eve’s bloodthirst. Next to her, Niall shivers. “Harry, if you want us to pull you out, you loosen your hands, yah?” 

Harry nods. Then she looks at all of them, one by one. “If this goes wrong-” 

“It won’t,” Liam says. “If she finds us, then we’re prepared - she can’t step into the circle.” 

“I’m not talking about her, I'm –… talking about me.” The trees groan in the wind, their twigs snapping. Most of them are several metres away, but it hasn’t been raining and the air is dry, the floor of the forest covered in inflammable foliage.  

Louis takes a small step forward and leys her hands around Harry’s neck, fingers tangling into her curls. “You can do this. This is your body, your mind, and you will defeat whatever is trying to control you. We’re by your side, I promise.” 

Harry’s own hands come up to rest on her elbows, desperately clutching her. “Don’t leave me.“ 

The others give their promises, but it’s Louis’ “I won’t” Harry reacts to, her shoulders slacking, her breath coming out in one long exhale. Her lashes drop, sun so bright it turns her green irises translucent. And then their lips meet. A little brush, a small peck, and they let go of each other. A lump grows in her throat, as she watches her lie down on the grass, the fallen leaves, the dark earth. They form a circle around her, hands slotting together. Eve watches stoically.  

Then Harry presses her own fingers on top of her coat, above her heart. Her chin tips up, throat exposed, her soft skin shadowed by the forest. A humming vibrates from her chest and an answer pulses from Louis', the pendant between her breasts warming slightly. Beneath it, her heart is hammering. She isn't ready for this. But they have not choice, so she bites the inside of her cheek and listens as Harry begins murmuring, smells the scents of the burning herbs grow stronger, feels heat prickling over her spine, watches as the candles win their fight against the wind and the fire strengthens.  
  
Harry turns quiet. She closes her eyes. And when she opens them again, they are burning. Yellow flames crackle in the cold air, flowing out between her lashes, reaching upwards into the sky. Harry’s mouth opens in a silent cry. Louis’ heart breaks. And the pain doesn't just hurt stay there, it rages in her whole upper body, in her sternum, making her chest pulse and constrict, like pressure from the outside and the inside simultaniously, like her ribs are flattened by a hot force. By the necklace. The pendant is its own fire, answering Harry's.

It goes on for an eternity. Flaming tears trickle down Harry’s cheeks, wounding her skin. Louis has to stop herself from falling to her knees, from screaming out, clutches Liam’s and Niall’s hands, sweat all over her body. Out of the corners of her sight, she sees the others looking around, watching out for movement between the trees, but nothing happens. _Nothing happens._ Then the first noises burst from Harry’s lips, sobs and whimpers. Her hands fall from her chest, and immediately, all five of them fall forwards, trying to get hold of her.  

“What do we do, what do we do,” Louis hears herself repeating, voice cracking.  

Niall pushes her out of the way, and grasps Harry’s fingers, bringing them up to the flames, closing Harry’s eyes with her own palms. At once, the forest darkens. No -, the flames simply cease, taking their light with them. The sun continues to shine. Life goes on around them. In the distance, birds sing. The sound makes Louis want to lash out at someone. Instead, she gently strokes a strand of hair away from Harry’s wounds. Slowly, the lashes that split the fire just mere moments ago, flutter open. There is pain in her eyes.  

Harry struggles to sit, several hands coming to help her. Except Eve’s, who is kneeling a length away, nostrils flaring. “What did you see? What is it?” It’s so urging, so ruthless.  

“Shut you fucking mouth,” Louis spits out, glaring at her. “Give her a moment, you worthless scum.” 

Eve blinks, visibly angry. Louis doesn’t give a damn, caresses Harry’s temples and tries to banish her own anger. The other girls stay silent, Zayn and Liam clutching each other, still looking around the forest, fear written on their faces. Niall keeps shaking her head, mouth in a white line. Minutes go by, and Harry’s breathing calms down. Her expression twists. “I’m sorry,” she whimpers. A red flush has travelled down her neck, goosebumps on her skin. When Louis kisses her knuckles, they are cold. 

“What?” Eve says again, sharp.                                                                              

“I saw nothing,” Harry whispers, crumbling into herself. “It didn’t work.” 

 

 

-*-              

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 At first, Louis feels only disbelieve. An unwillingness to accept hat Harry had to suffer just for them to remain exactly where they are. In danger. But when Eve takes them back to the church, offering to make lunch, and she has to practically carry Harry down the slope of the mountain, it settles in. Their plan failed. They are not able to control the events to their likeness, to their safety. They are doomed to wait, or to split up, to run. She came all this way, dug through her grandmother’s documents, dealt with bureaucracy and leads that went nowhere, she talked to people who wouldn’t help until they offered her enigmatic advise, she found her great-grandmothers grave – a tomb for women that turn into snakes at night. All for it to end like this: With shaking limbs, bile scorching in her guts, and clouds weighing down her mind.  

The two of them are curled up on the bench closest to the altar, Harry’s head resting on her thigh. She is still cold to the touch. Her hand that isn't stroking through Harry's curls is tightened in a fist around the necklace. The pendant broke in two, a crack through its delicate pattern, edges melted by the fire.

Zayn and Liam lean against a column in the back, hushed conversation and desperate kisses between them. Dry earth clings to their boots, has left a dirty trail in the church. Niall is pacing up and down the aisle, wringing her hands, ignoring their words of concern. Her footsteps are loud and dull, even louder, even duller than Louis’ thumping heart. She wonders, whether Niall will truly stay, will repeat her ancestors’ actions and hide herself in the guesthouse. She won’t listen to her carefully chosen inquires.  

Eve, who has been lighting candles on the altar, vanishes into the office and Louis watches her retreating figure. Maybe it was all lies. Maybe the diary of her great-grandmother truly is forged, and that sob-story made up. The Ghost was just a ghost that happened to stumble upon Louis, or the one from France. It’s a comforting idea. But deep down, she knows Eve told the truth. She also knows that Harry would have sensed a lie.   

Suddenly, Niall stops in her pacing, turned towards the front. Her fists quiver by her side. Then she lets out a hoarse, frantic shout. It’s full of anger, ringing from the stone walls of the church, shrill in her ears. Before she can react, Liam has already reached Niall, pulling her into her arms. “It’s okay, it’ll be okay.” Zayn, next to her, looks like she doesn’t believe her lover.  

Harry draws up her knees further to her chest, jostling Louis. She can’t see her face, but her pants feel damp and a quiet weeping sounds into the air. “It’s not your fault,“ she whispers. 

But there’s no reaction, not even a shudder.   

Eve comes back, five envelopes in her hands. Her stride is purposeful. “I’ve bought train tickets for four of you, one bus ticket. They all have different destination,” with a look towards Zayn and Liam, she shrugs. “You can choose to get in contact after I while, but I'd say it’s best to remain apart for some days. You should leave as soon as possible. I have a bad feeling about this and I’m sure you all agree.” 

All that’s left, is to give in. 

 

 

-*-                                                                                                                                                                                       

         

   

By nightfall they have gone back home and packed their belongings.  
There was a short moment where they stared up at the house, stood before the hole in the door, and said their good byes. Even Louis felt a strange feeling overcome her senses. Harry had been shaking and struggling to get inside, stumbling over the threshold, almost unable to walk. But eventually, they made it up and started to gather their things. Her suitcase stands by the door, now decidedly heavier. She will take a few of her great-grandmother's possessions with her, mostly books and jewellery. Despite not being related to any of the five that came back, Zayn, Liam and Harry have chosen some things, too. It’s Niall that surprised all of them by stating that she won’t take anything with her, can’t bear keeping reminders of a house she will never set foot in again. Only the picture of the two children that sat on the desk in the hallway is now folded up and hidden in a new pendant around her neck. Zayn and Liam are wearing new ones too, but Louis is still waiting for Harry to make one for her and herself. It feels right, somehow. To share that bond with her.

Again, they spend the night in Harry’s bedroom. It’s a solace, sharing her fear and heartache with the others. They’re one jumble of limbless bodies, one deep pit of shared emotions. Except Harry. Harry refuses to turn, refuses to listen to them. She lies on her bed, indifferent to their prods. Finally, Louis turns back. It costs her all the remaining energy within her, it feels wrong, it feels as if she is willingly leaving safety behind. She rests her naked body next to Harry’s clothed one, indecisive fingers on her arm. “Don’t you think it’d be good to-” 

Harry shakes her head. “No,” she touches her own collarbone. “Turn back. I’ll sleep.” 

Louis looks at her profile, at the scars on her cheeks, at the glistening of her mouth. She remembers its texture on her own. But she doesn’t kiss her lips. Instead, she takes her hand in hers, kisses her knuckles. “Thank you for trying.” 

Harry stares back at her. There is no heat in her eyes, not even a glimmer. Just emptiness. But she brings up Louis’ fingers, and kisses her knuckles, too.  

 

 

-*-                                            

 

                                            

Harry slips out just before dawn.   
The sun has not yet risen, but there is a green tinge on the horizon, the black sky turning blue. The curtains frame the mountain, a gap allowing its shape to loom above them. It also allows Louis’ eyes to adjust to the dark, see Harry’s silhouette glide through door, curls haloed. With a stopping of her heart, she knows she just _knows_ , that Harry’s not simply using the toilet or getting a glass of water. For a few horrifying seconds she can’t move and at first she fears that her body has transformed without her consent, but then a jolt travels through her and she sits up straight. The sound of the front door slipping shut reaches her ears. Zayn, rolled up by the bed, opens her eyes. They stare at each other, one of them fearful, the other unmoving. Then the others wake, too, and at once, they turn human. Before Niall has even gotten all her limbs back, she crawls towards the door. “What is she doing,” it comes out slurred.  

It takes four excruciating minutes for the three of them to turn fully, and three more for all of them to scurry into the hallway and slip their coats on, bumping into each other. The wind pushes through the hole in the front door, the moon is split by the greenery on the glass ceiling. They run down the stairs, pass the iron lift, and race outside. The street is deserted. Not one sign of life but their frightened movements. “Liam, Zayn you go to the church, call Eve. Maybe she’s on her way over there,“ Niall instructs, almost screeching. “Louis and I will go back to the mountain. We’ll make a call if we find her or - or the Ghost. _As soon_ as we see either, yeah?“ 

They all nod, and Zayn and Liam run away, both clutching their phones. Louis takes out her own, rushing after Niall who heads into the opposite direction, through the alley and into the shadow of the mountain.  

 

 

-*- 

 

 

They find her on the exact same spot they left hours ago. Niall calls Liam immediately, but Louis sinks to the forest floor with a soft cry, unable to carry herself any longer. Harry lies on her back, hands pressed to her heart, face distorted in agony and her eyes lighting up the night. Flames lick towards the stars as if they want to consume them, hissing and crackling in the quiet. Fallen leaves have already started curling from the heat, Louis’ coat feels like it’s singeing. When she tries to push Harry’s fingers from her chest, they won’t budge, her muscles like stone. When Niall tries to cover Harry’s eyes with her palms, she screams and withdraws them instantly, flesh burned. When Louis lets out a broken pleading, all that answers is a laugh.  

Harry’s head turns slightly. Between the flames, there is nothing but white. _“You practically invited me in and now you want to kick me out?”_  

Louis’ heart stops. It doesn’t properly start beating again, rattling against her ribs.  

“Leave her alone!“ Niall shouts, tears wetting her cheeks. She has her hands close to her chest, a burn on her arms where her jacket was seared.  

The Ghost shakes Harry‘s head, uses her mouth: _“I’ve been looking for someone like this for centuries. I’ll keep her. At least until she has shown me how I can end this curse.”_

A sudden pain shoots down Louis’ spine, through her heart. It surpasses all the aches, all the agony she has felt before. And her body reacts. Her lungs contract, and her legs slip out beneath her, the coat falls to pieces as her arms merge with her torso, her visions blurs and the heat around her shifts into something palpable. She’s in snake form. The power lines beneath the earth, in the air, in every object in their paths thrumm around her, making every cell in her scarled body sing. It's almost the most powerful thing she has ever felt. Almost. The Ghost’s consciousness is more powerful, more encompassing than the paths', than her own, than the girls’ combined, it assaults her mind. It’s not hindered by the leftover herbs that cling to the scent of the night, not bothered any longer by the charms that hang around them, it has adapted to them, consumed them. A strange voice is inside her head. _You can’t save her. If you want me gone, you’ll have to kill her. And then I'll only take over your body. Or your friend’s._                                

The hatred that radiates from the Ghost almost makes her faint. It’s tied to memories of pain and loss and abandonment, but mostly fuelled by enraged ignorance, by an unwillingness to expose her weaknesses. But there is also something familiar behind it, hidden by it. Deep down, there is the soft warmth of Harry. Louis was never able to feel it before, it might be the Ghost or the fact that Harry is scrying, but Louis latches onto it. She curls her body around Harry’s human form, despite the heat, despite the Ghost bucking and struggling. Then she presses her snout to Harry’s heart, on top of her hands. _Please,_ she thinks. _Please._ She sends out her consciousness, pushes it against the cage the Ghost has built. The Ghost laughs, the sound echoing in her head.  

Then another presence joins her. Niall. Together they reach towards Harry. And Harry answers. Faintly, weakly, but she answers. And yet another presence. And another. Zayn and Liam. They have arrived. They’re coming towards them, joining them, curling around Harry’s body. With a screech, the Ghost tries to leave Harry and latch onto one of them, but they hold it down, trap it between their energies. Suddenly, the flames grow stronger, burning their scales, making them writhe. A fire builds up in Harry’s mind, in her heart. Louis can feel it under her skin. And then Harry turns, too. Her head falls back, a hiss plunges from her lips. This time it’s the Ghost that screams in pain. It burns. It burns in the fire of Harry’s mind, and in the fire that ignites from her eyes, and now Louis and the others pull back in discomfort, not because of the heat, but because Harry’s is _growing_. Still a snake, she rears up, singeing the lower leaves of the trees. When she comes down again, she has transformed yet another time. Into something gigantic and powerful, into something frightening and magnificent. Into something that is indestructible.  

It’s a dragon. Red and orange scales glimmer purple in the waning night, golden around the spikes on her back. A back that is curved in front of the sky, two wings covering the clearing in the forest, throwing shadows across their bodies. Harry’s claws dig into the earth, her tail tears the bark of a tree. Her eyes are no longer flaming, but there is a glowing in her chest that suggest that the fire is a mere breath away. Her omnipresence in Louis’ mind resembles a storm. And the ghost keeps burning, vanishes. It doesn’t leave Harry, but rather collapses into itself, becomes smaller and smaller – but then another being comes near. And the ghost seizes its chance, takes over the new body.  

Eve stumbles. She is twitching, taking steps towards them, then falling back. Before the ghost can escape with her, Harry lashes out, holds her down. There is a moment when Louis thinks that she might burn her, shred her to bits, pierce her heart with one long claw. But then she feels Harry’s dread, her concern, her doubt and realises that while Harry might be strong and powerful now, she is still human. Still a human girl full of fear and loss. She sends a wave of devotion towards her, curls around one of her legs, lets her know she is by her side. _Don’t_ , she transmits. Niall is of another opinion, she pushes images of violence through their minds.  

Before anything can happen, Eve’s mouth let’s out a sigh. _“Who would have thought...”_ Whether it’s Eve herself or her sister, Louis can’t tell. In the next second, another breath leaves Eve and she goes slack, torso seeming frail beneath the dragon’s claw on her chest. Her heartless, ageless, old body is truly dead. The ghost tries to cling onto the last remains of energy, to any form of life, to a bird in the treetop, to a rodent nestled in the earth. But it fails. And then, suddenly, it stops trying. The last emotions that it radiates, is astonishment. 

 

 

-*- 

 

 

They don’t leave the forest for a while. Harry crumbles, as soon as both Eve and her sister have died. She can’t seem to move her limbs, her wings lying uselessly on the grass. Sadness drips from her mind, mixing with Louis’ relief, the remnants of fear, the urge to shout into the sky. The power paths hum around them. They are alive. They survived. The night starts to lift around them, the blue on the horizon turning lighter and lighter, a beam of yellow above the mountain. When the sun has risen, they are in their human form. Even Harry. They are all shaking in the cool morning air, but not one of them can stand. So they crawl towards each other, seeking each other's warmth. Niall’s hands are covered in blisters, skin an angry red. And Harry’s cheeks are streaked with burns. Skin is bruised, tender to the touch, lungs unable to move properly, smoke within them. But those wounds will heal. It's the others that won't.

Louis thinks of her siblings. Wonders if they’re preparing to leave for school. Wonders if her step-dad has already made their lunch. Wonders if they will remember her, now that she has changed, now that she has experienced a kind of fear that overshadows anything else. Now that she has known true union. She thinks of her sisters’ little faces, lit up by grins and happiness. She thinks about telling them what will happen to them one day, that they might feel the hatred that the world has in store for them, but that they will have ownership over their bodies and minds like there is no other. She thinks about telling them how much she loves them. That she will always fight for them.  

Because she doesn’t have her siblings with her, she turns towards her girls. Staring up at the blue sky, the cornflower blue sky and the white fluffy clouds that dance across it, she tells the other four that she will always be by their side. And they curl around her, share her warmth, whispers of love between them, Harry’s lips on her neck.                 

 

 

-*- 

 

 

When they have dragged themselves up, and down the mountain, thankful for once for the empty streets as they stagger through the alley in their nakedness, they use the iron lift to get to the guesthouse. Louis closes her eyes, listens to the rattling of the bars and leans against Harry’s back, her arms looped around her waist. Harry turns around, and smiles at her, eyes still full of exhaustion, but a gleam in their depth. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “Thank you for going after me.” Her curls are still matted to her face, little strands twisting like flames. 

“Of course,” Louis whispers back, thumbs pressed into her soft hips. “Thank you for saving us all.” 

“Fuckin’ cheers,” Niall says from where she leans against the door of the lift. Zayn and Liam sigh an amused agreement.  

Harry shakes her head. “I couldn’t do it alone -” 

Louis grins: “You didn’t. But you did most of the work. Let us be thankful for that.” 

“I could have never done it without any of you.” 

The lift comes to a halt, and Niall steps out. The glass ceiling above them lets in a ray of sunshine, greenery strewn across it. The streaky shadows join the red lines on Harry’s face. They look at each other, lips trembling slightly. With a shaky inhale, Louis pulls her in again and kisses her. And kisses her. And kisses her.                                               

 

 

-*- 

 

 

During breakfast, Harry tries to explain what she thinks had happened. “I’m not sure when she possessed me. It’s all a blur. I don’t think it was when I tried to look into her future, and I don’t think it was before we entered the church, it must have happened after. I’m not sure if she could have remained calm around Eve. She was careful about it, didn’t let me notice her until you all were asleep. It’s like she hid herself in the outer corners of my mind,” she closes her eyes, a tear wetting her lashes. Louis grips her hand under the table. “But then -. It was so painful. So much, so much hatred and so much anger. She really was convinced she had to kill the five of us because she couldn’t kill her own children back then.” 

“So it wasn’t about all Lamias, it was about the five of _us_?” Liam asks, her cup of tea long gone cold. None of them are able to digest much.  

“Yeah, I think so. She was prepared to do so -, to kill us, I mean all Lamias, whenever five of us found each other. Eve was wrong, it didn’t just happen once, and it didn’t just happen here. She did it for centuries, all over the world. She thought...” 

“She thought it would allow her to fully die, huh?“ Niall’s hands are bandaged and her glass of water induced with pain killers. They’ll have to get her to a hospital or a doctor.  

Harry laughs. It’s bitter and dry, paired with a furrowing of her brows: “She was so, so wrong. They had to reunite for her to pass over. Her ‘n her sister, they had to forgive each other. I guess sharing a mind and a body is quick to do so.” 

“But why did Eve die?” Liam’s jaw ticks. “When you called us, we told her to stay at the church. If she would have stayed, we could have -… made her sister vanish without Eve having to die, too! We were so close!” 

“You know...” Harry leans against Louis’ shoulder, breathing slowly. “She told us the night that her sister gave birth to the first five, the night she became the first Lamia, all those centuries ago, that the powers in the church caused the transformation, yeah? But I think it didn’t just transform her sister. She, uhm, she never told us how she got turned into a vampire.” 

Zayn has been picking apart an orange. Her posture is slack, her back curved. In her face is open pity. “You think she was turned that night.” 

“Yeah. Which was just another thing that tied the two together. I think she chose to go last night, I think she has been sick of the world for a long time. Angry. Maybe I just want to believe that.” 

“So she just died because her sister died? Just like that? Decided to give up, on us and the world?”, Niall’s expression is of anger.                                                                      

Louis shrugs. “Honestly, I’m not sad.” 

“Louis!”, Harry exclaims, but her voice is tinted with understanding.  

“I mean, life must get pretty fucking stale after hundreds of years.” 

The others laugh. A bit in discomfort, a bit relieved, a bit at loss. It will take some time for them to work this all out. To fully understand what happened, to make peace with it. If they ever can. The events of last night, of the last days will always stay with them, there is no doubt about that. Eve’s death, her sister’s death will loom on their shoulders, weigh them down, a Ghost that can’t be removed. Like a shadow following them, like the everlasting shadow of the mountain.  

 

 

-*-  -*- 

         

 

The dream latches onto her, not letting go. One half of her mind is aware of the bed around her, the yellow light, her skin against the blanket. The other is running from a shine so cold it sears the back of her neck, shoving into her head violently and unforgiving and vengeful. It takes control over her mouth, makes it scream. As every morning, this is the moment her heart races so forcefully it wakes her up.                                                                                                                                                                  

People are in the kitchen, she can hear them. Several voices are drawn out by happy music, hushed laughter mingling with the breathy lyrics of a woman. Louis tuns over and buries her nose in the cushion, groaning quietly. When she breathes in, it smells like Harry. And this, like every morning, is the moment her heart settles again. Sweat has pooled in the back of her knees and around her breasts, made her lips sticky and salty beneath her tongue. A scale pokes her in the hip. It’s still too hot, too humid under the duvet but the room around them is chilly against her puffy face. Next to her, Harry emits warmth. She watches her sleep, lids twitching softly. Harry's face is unscarred. It has been unscarred for some time now.  

On the nightstand next to the bed, lies a letter. Niall’s elegant handwriting tells of her travels, of meeting up with the other two in the south of the country, of driving up and coming to visit them. It’s the second time this month and right in time for Halloween. The candy is already waiting to be distributed among the neighbours. Maybe they’ll even dress up, all five of them, after returning from an evening spend in the forest. She can’t wait to show Zayn the latest addition to the decorations on the clearing they deemed their own, far enough to be off the path from random hikers or people walking their dogs. Though, if someone found a place among the trees that is framed by lampions and carved pumpkins and a burnt pile of wood, they would probably just pin it on some party-leftovers. They don’t have to worry about anyone finding them out.                                                 

From below, the giggle of one of her sisters rings out. A choir of excited shouts follows, and then the sounds of her siblings racing through the house, playing tag. Her step-dad shouts for them to be careful, fondness in his voice. It wakes Harry up, too. She blinks, and smacks her lips, yawning delightfully. Her gaze sets on Louis and her mouth forms three sweet, warm words. Her eyes are glowing in the rising sun, tinted golden, burning.   

 

 

-*-

**Author's Note:**

> I hope this wasn't too much. Also, I desperately hope this isn't as much of a mess as it appeared to me while writing it. A comment would be greatly appreciated xx


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